Laura Nicole Diamond
-
What Is Lost, and What Remains:
One week after the Palisades Fire, for a three-generation family. I had a “Go bag” in…
-
Forget spring cleaning in a soon-to-be empty nest
In December 2000, the back seat of my car was pristine. Untouched. I was eight months…
-
Dream Small
The path to true greatness may lie in smallness.
-
Hey, Writer’s Block: Meet Me Outside.
When creativity hides, look for it in unexplored places. “Why don’t we ruminate on good things?”…
-
Almost There
Daring to shout your dreams to the world lets others dream, too. I am posting from…
-
In Praise of Tiny Gratitude
Most days I feel like gratitude is my superpower, and I can turn away from the…
-
Did I love it enough?*
No matter how we try, can we savor a moment as much as we should? Did…
-
This is what life is like now
A desk’s drawers give clues to who we are, and who we might become. This is…
-
Unexpected Gift of a Writing Practice
How it may break me of the nasty “helpful” habit. At our Thursday morning zoom writing…
-
These Things We Love
The unpredictable bliss of salvaging a memory from a (sometimes) fruitless writing practice. These sagging couches,…
-
Mending
Lessons from my grandmother’s sewing kit There is a moment when you can feel the rain…
-
At College Application Season, A Message to My Son
As you drag yourself to this task whose stakes feel so high, remember your true worth…
-
Rituals – Intended and Accidental
The Jewish New Year prompts the annual introspection: how to love our imperfect selves? Last year…
-
This is What We Are Given
This is what we are given. An invitation — to write, to meet, or maybe to…
-
Why Do You Write?
One reason is universal: to share our stories and remember. For generations, authors have offered their…
-
What to Do When the World Goes Mad?
I try to locate the balance between sorrow, empathy and gratitude, to allow myself to enjoy…
-
There Are Miracles Still on this Planet
In case you have not yet followed me on Medium, you have not received the piece…
-
Hey Friday, Thank God It’s You.
The weeks do not fly so much as they race. A frantic regatta of days, each…
-
Go Slowly: Advice on Writing and Living in 2022
It is okay in the quiet of the morning to shrink our worldly concerns to the…
-
Finding Fullness
My uncle found a trove of mementos in our grandmother’s apartment after she died, and passed…
-
Possibilities
Our two lists sit side by side – one for his baby names, the other for…
-
Nature
I want my children to know what it feels like to sit at the shore alone…
-
Followers
There are mysteries, after all. I accompanied her to consider the possibility, to Maybe.
-
Counting on Thanksgiving.
Can it ever be “too soon to be grateful?”
-
Appreciations
“That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another’s. We see so much only as…
-
Expand (with me, and follow me)
At the end of this post, I am going to ask you a favor. But first,…
-
Shine
I had a WhatsApp message yesterday from a man whose deportation I failed to stop, to…
-
Dangerous
A poem may not be the kind of danger my son had in mind those years…
-
Slow
Monday morning. Here we go! Clean slate! Another week, another chance to start strong! Exercise! Writing!…
-
Rituals (or Goodbye to all that)
We sat around our dining room table in mid-August. Summer was ending. Our younger son would…
-
Medium
“I want to know if he’s okay,” she says, heartbroken. I think, but do not say,…
-
Adaptability
Summer is over, if you did not know. One sure sign: our son left today. He…
-
Calling
I stood at the foot of my bed folding laundry, listening to a podcast to take…
-
Heated
My sister says she does not think her kids should have children. We are sitting at…
-
Beckon
“Beckon the lovely.” Words I am remembering today from the late Amy Krouse Rosenthal, an author…
-
Boundaries
Sharing a favorite post, our last morning of a cross-country drive last summer. One year ago…
-
Sage
It is my baby’s 17th birthday. The kid is funny, possessing a sense of humor that…
-
Reunion
We came together for a weekend, five women in our fifties (well, one almost at that…
-
Community
Community is a Fourth of July small town parade, dormant for a year, pushing out of…
-
Writer’s Life: Laurie James
For fans of Glennon Doyle’s Love Warrior and Trading Places: Becoming My Mother’s Mother by Sandra Bullock Smith, SANDWICHED by Laurie…
-
Keep going
I had done 108 sun salutations in a row on a dare and I could barely…
-
Reopening
Tomorrow California’s economy reopens. What does it mean to reopen ourselves? Remember where we were: March…
-
Awaiting
Last Monday, Memorial Day, my mind was fixated on the asylum case I would present two…
-
Keepsakes
When a bedroom became my home office, I chose the things I wanted around me. A…
-
Confidence
“Faithfully knowing” is stronger than intuition or a hunch, which are sometimes all you get and…
-
Guardian angels
Guardian angels cannot be seen or touched. They cannot be pinned to cloth or kept in…
-
Permission
I was admiring my friend’s paintings, beautiful watercolors and abstract oils, when I said that I…
-
Dangerous
I feel most alive when I’m doing something dangerous. These words, spoken by my then-ten-year-old son,…
-
Weeds
I find myself hoping that by some magic these hours will transform into an ability to…
-
Integrity
It’s in my arm! My second shot! You will forgive me if I write nothing today,…
-
More Pandemic Life, and Light, One Year Later
We have never known what comes next. The last year has taught us that.
-
Pandemic Life – One Year Later
A year and a week ago, when I wrote the post below, I thought the quarantine…
-
Balance
Life gives you hard things; you do them. You don’t have to tell yourself a whole…
-
Vaccine-a-Palooza
This is what we have come to — a global pandemic met by a volunteer-led drive-through…
-
Lasts
I am running a few minutes late. Never mind that I live two blocks from the…
-
Cousins
And like our grandparents asked our parents before us, we we will take our kids’ photos…
-
Sweetbitter
We are here, we are together, and we are missing. An exquisite yearning.
-
Authenticity
“Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity.” Maybe that explains why the word “authenticity” sizzles…
-
Comfort
My word for this week is “comfort” — How to comfort a grieving friend, when we…
-
Reinvention
Can we become who we want to be, and what the world needs us to be?
-
Sing.
Word of the week: Sing.
-
A Prayer for Leaders from Dr. King.
I do not know what a prayer is, or how to pray, or why. “Pray not…
-
Word of the Week: Resilience
Resilience is every one of us who made it through last year — and, yes, last…
-
Word of the Week: Renewal
One of my goals for this new year is to choose one word at the beginning…
-
Word of the Week
My word for this week, whose opening days hold the closing moments of the year, sounds…
-
What Will We Remember?
On the shortest, darkest day of 2020, I think about what pieces of time from this…
-
A placeholder Thanksgiving. Keep it warm.
The memories come all at once, out of order. Cousin Ken sitting in the middle of…
-
May we choose to heal
Four years ago I wore white. My boys declined my invitation to vote with me; they’d…
-
Dance with me: a love letter
Maybe this is a love story about love itself.
-
How to cure despair? Lady Gaga can help.
Let’s talk about despair for a minute, and then let’s get to joy. There is a…
-
A New “New Year” (aka Pandemic Rosh Hashana)
Yesterday I stepped into adulthood: I pre-ordered a round challah from the Gelson’s bakery. As I…
-
Coming Home
Ten unplanned days in Washington Crossing flowed into one another like a ribbon of syrup poured…
-
RV Roadtrip: The Last Hours
I am at the wheel ascending a stretch of the Appalachians in West Virginia, thinking about…
-
RV Roadtrip: Road Rule — “It Doesn’t Say ‘Absolutely’”
I am dreaming that someone is driving our RV while we sleep. This concerns me because…
-
RV Roadtrip: From Kansas Steaks to Kentucky Fried Chicken
I have known since the time I can remember knowing anything, that Brown vs. Board of…
-
RV Roadtrip: Kansas Is So Big
Before we leave the KOA in eastern Colorado and head to Kansas, there is one dirty…
-
RV Roadtrip: Colorado’s Purple Mountains Majesty
I wake up in Rocky Mountain National Park on a queen size bed inside an RV…
-
RV Roadtrip: Rocky Mountain High, and Low
As we make our way from Utah to Colorado, we stop at a “View Site” —…
-
RV Roadtrip: Reaching for Zion
I now have the peace of mind of knowing that driving the RV is not the…
-
How to travel across America during a pandemic. And why.
During a pandemic, what is the best way to visit your family across the country? If…
-
Writer’s Life: Cathy Zane
The current stop-the-world era prompts a lot of big feelings. Anxiety. Generosity. Even creativity. This is…
-
Life in the Time of Coronavirus: Bright spots (you must read to the end)
Hello friends, Well, I am one week into my hardcore understanding that “social distance” means do…
-
Life in the Time of Coronavirus: Fear and Comedy
Toilet paper rolls in the hall used as buffers against the rolling ping pong ball that…
-
Stay safe, and a couple of jokes.
Well, hello, it’s been a while. How’s by you? Helluva month it’s been. And by “month”…
-
The 2019 Recap, and 2020 Wishes
On the last day of the year, I sit to think about the gifts of the…
-
How to Save the World, One Life at a Time
I’m no wiser than the next person, but maybe this how the healing happens: town by…
-
Everyday Heroes: Westside Food Bank volunteer Bruce Rosen
Too many kids go to bed hungry. Too many moms reluctantly pour half a glass of…
-
Audiobooks and Appreciations
Today the SHELTER US audiobook is available, along with paperback and e-book. (And for this week only,…
-
Everyday Heroes: Foster-Adoptive Parents, Like Author Rene Denfeld
Today I want to lift up the everyday heroism of foster parents and foster-adoptive parents. What…
-
Everyday Heroes: You
Here are a few of the “everyday heroes” you told me about in response to the…
-
#Audiobook #Giveaway in Appreciation of #EverydayHeroes
ANNOUNCING SHELTER US AUDIOBOOK GIVEAWAY! A wise man said recently that an “everyday hero” need not be…
-
Everyday Heroes: Young Leaders
We delivered our college freshman to school this week, and it took a Herculean heroism on…
-
Everyday Hero: Little Free Pantries
Welcome back to the “Save One Life, Save the World?” countdown, celebrating everyday heroes. Today, I…
-
Save One Life, Save the World?
Join me October 23 for “Save One Life, Save the World?”, a panel discussion about how…
-
How to foster connection, community, conversation…read, gather, party.
Thank you to the Friends of the Palisades Library for this awesome honor. Please join us in…
-
How to survive the first day of school blues.
Today is the first day of high school for my baby, the one who proclaimed after…
-
SHELTER US, the Audiobook.
By now, my friends and readers, you know that my Grandma Lilli figures big in my…
-
Writer’s Life: Jane Green is Back!
In anticipation of the June 4 publication of Jane Green’s new novel, The Friends We Keep,…
Laura Nicole Diamond 