Katherine Mahon Holmes writes

Somewhere between plastic eggs and a quiet church, Easter begins to make sense to me.

If you know—and have a bit of a relationship with—your very own ChatGPT (which sounds an awful lot like ChatGBT, so don’t make the same mistake I did and talk about ChatGBT with your friends—because eventually someone will hear that B  and correct you), you will get this. My therapist—an old transplant to this Maine county, like me—is also a former occupational therapist, also like me. She worked in the same school system, just at a different time, and for a short while was t

This morning I resumed my meditation practice. I sat myself down on my meditation pillow, which has been kindly waiting for me for too long. Months. I listened to a Buddha lesson as my meditation. It’s a new app. I know. I know. Not exactly meditation. But I have to ease back into it. I have the kind of energy where, when I start something, I’m all in. I’m enthusiastic. My mind is present. I have every intention of seeing whatever it is through. And when the project or discip

My terrible memory could be from my ADHD, or—God help me—signs of early dementia, or, like a lot of people in their sixties who say they can’t even remember where they left their keys five minutes ago, maybe it’s just an age thing. There are long stretches of my life I don’t remember clearly. High school, especially, exists more as a feeling than a series of events. Faces blur. Years collapse. When I reach for details, my mind offers very little in return. Those years were ab

“Ha! #47. That was a good one,” we’d laugh. That is one of the jokes my siblings and I throw out when we surround a kitchen island, sharing stories. We loved and still do, telling and listening to our repeated funny stories, especially if a newcomer enters the circle. But if it were just us, we’d joke we’d only have to say a number, like 47, as if we all knew what story it was and would all chuckle.  Yesterday, I checked in by text with an old friend I had not spoken with in

Every Christmas season, when I get to wrapping presents, a 35-year-old memory returns. It was the first December of my first real career job out of college, which I'd started the previous summer. What I thought was my dream job turned out to be a nightmare. And all I wanted to do was work at Macy’s in the wrapping department—a very specific, daily daydream. Just throw away four years of a bachelor's degree and the responsibility of paying back student loans for a happy, Chris

Rocky Boat There are days when my insides just feel unsettled. Ungrounded. If I were a boat, it would be on a day when the waves were choppy. The sky, gray. No rhyme or reason for this kind of weather. It catches me off guard. So my footing is off. It’s scary. My throat is tight because I am acutely aware I am weathering a storm without my right-hand person. I am acutely aware I am weathering it alone. There are no tools in my grief-repairing toolbox to fix this. I just have

I changed the light bulb in the bathroom exhaust fan with my four-year-old granddaughter, Chloe. We visited the bathroom several times today. First, she had to go pee, so we went to the bathroom together for that. Then a while later, I had to. The door was not fully closed. So, in came Chloe and then the dog. Her little hands don’t quite reach the faucet so she used the step ladder I had folded against the wall. She likes that little step ladder. She uses it often in the kitc

It is evening, the end of a long day moving my son into his new apartment. Returning the Uhaul truck, I turn right, up Cove Street. A woman is walking down the street. Her hair is light brown and long, to the bottom of her shoulder blades. A little frizzy in this 60-70 degree early June evening air, in Portland, Maine. There is a pleasant cool breeze that catches it. She pushes her grocery cart filled with what I imagine everything she owns, heading for Marginal Way, where th

I Will Follow You to Virgie , a beautiful song about a young man going back to his hometown for the funeral of his high school buddy's grandmother. A woman who was a supportive person in his younger life. “Yeah, I reckon we were heathens, but in her eyes we were saints.” Anyone who, when young, had an older person in their life, hold them in a higher light, deserved or not, understands the emotion of this song. I can come up with many adults from my childhood who were instrum

By Katherine Mahon From The Aputampkon Review, Vol 1 Voices from Downeast Maine & Coastal New Brunswick Canada 2006 pages 100-103...

Healing from grief has many faces. Many of them are awkward. Traveling through uncharted waters with no script to follow. And oddly...

March 11, 2023 Route 9 is a long 2-hour stretch of road in Maine from Bangor to Calais. If you have driven this road, you have encountered these giant wind turbines. At first, they can be seen from a distance. But then, they disappear from view and reappear after a bend in the road and a climb up a hill. Boom. There it is. This humongous, man-made, moving majestic object. My immediate reaction is, “Wow!” Like a visual shot of exhilaration. It’s one of my favorite little surp

These days, life events can easily be described through a phrase from a children's book, as I am reading more of them lately to toddlers...

Three square pillows all bearing a distinct clean hem line, rest on the made bed. Two, charcoal gray. One, oatmeal. All the same...

I couldn’t NOT write about my time spent with my (shhhhhh favorite) niece, her significant other, and their newborn twin boys. I’ve been...

The sun is shining through large windows in a clubhouse gym, in a housing development where my niece and her significant other live. It...

I joined an online creative writing class a couple of months ago. When I’m in the class, I feel a childlike delight stretching across my...

December 17, 2022 Dear Jake, A theme started way back when your father and I were young enough that he could not pronounce my name...

Coincidence or not, I rummaged through older writing pieces and landed on this one, which I will share with you momentarily. It was...