6500 moments of gratitude, that’s one bit of gratitude for every time someone opened Stories by Janus on Substack, where I bare my flash auto-fictions (short, less than five minutes, autobiography with a whiff of fiction), aka creative memoir (my life as told by someone with a flawed memory and a vivid imagination). If you like to multi-task, my pieces have buttons to press or arrows pointing east to touch that start the audio, and then you can hear me read them to you in what has been called my NPR voice. (My apologies to anyone below the age of 70, but I do have many readers for whom these explanations are appreciated).
I know everyone is busy, so none of my pieces are longer than five minutes. Besides, many of my best friends and favorite people claim ADHD, which, in many cases, is just a modest description of being interested in more things than you can possibly do or think of at once.
In case you missed one of my posts, I’ve included hotlinks just a click away, and poof, like magic, there they are. I write so that you will reflect on your life as much as hear a story from mine. ‘I already read that’ is no excuse. Ponder. Ruminate. Consider course corrections.
I include hotlinks of gratitude, sharing names of people who inspired me, people I know who know me, and those who haven’t a clue as to who this Janice Hoffmann person is who writes Stories by Janus on Substack.
In Unforgettable: Fantasy of an Afterlife as Mourning Dove, I imagine what it would be like if, after I die, I came back as a bird. If you listen rather than read, you will hear me sing a few bars of “Unforgettable” at the end to channel my memory of Natalie Cole at the Hollywood Bowl, singing a duet with a recording of her Daddy looming large on a big screen behind her. So many metaphors and so little time to write them, so you have to re-read and ponder, and perhaps you will be touched like I was in 2009, and you may savor a memory that moves you.
And just in case you prefer to listen to the real deal, there are many opportunities to enjoy Natalie and Nat.
"Dividing the Light," by James Turrell: Look Up and Imagine a World of Your Own, simply reminds you to get out of your own head and take a peek from a different perspective, even if it is just looking to the sky and asking yourself what you see and pondering your relationship with the universe, your relationship to the universe, your place in the universe.
Although you may not come to Claremont and see our James Turrell, there are several hundred others worldwide to see. Click this link for the location of a James Turrell skyspace near you. Thanks to Gail Ford for many inspiring writing classes, especially those focusing on writing about art.
How an Odd Leftover Lot Fulfills Dreams is a tale of two people (Larry and me) and how their (our) small dreams became great pleasures.
A shout-out to Aimee Nezhukumatathil, professor of English and creative writing at the University of Mississippi who demonstrates how genus species names can enhance everyday writing.
Here’s an example of even though you‘ve read it, you might want to read it again. In Remembering the Grand Prix Fire, we are reminded how tenuous security can be and how, in an instant, our world can turn, and we can suffer a trauma that might get in the way of life as we know it and that it can last for years. I can’t imagine living the traumas that people suffer daily throughout the world. How do they do it? How do we do it? How do you do it?
And perhaps more to the point, let’s embrace gratitude more. I learned that from Ross Gay.
In Remembering Stokowski, I share how spending an afternoon with a 90-year-old genius still gives me shivers 50 years later. Who has an LP of him conducting the Mahler 2nd with the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus? Listen closely. I’m the soprano in the back row on the end.
The Pleasures of Retirement is an irreverent snapshot of how I’ve changed since I gave up the pressures of being in the workforce a few years ago. Holy moly. I was so Type A, and now I’m not, but that’s another story and one that I’ll tell soon.
When a loved one loses their health, often we experience their demise as slow-motion torture, and I talk about my dad in Experiencing the Death of a Parent.
I’ve been married to Larry for almost 39 years, but I clearly remember the moment I met him in The Best Halloween Party Ever. Perhaps one of my beloved writing teachers is spot on about readers being eager voyeurs because more of you have opened that than any other piece. Francesca Moroney, writes Singing the Tune Without the Words on Substack and recently published in Rattle a moving poem entitled In Today's Fantasy: Trees, Poems, and Sex.
I Forgive You is an homage to Dilruba Ahmed and her poem “Phase One.” Why are we so hard on ourselves for simply being human?
Who do you know that doesn’t fit in but deserves to be loved and accepted? For me,it is My New Friend Mike, a Crossdresser.
Over the years, I have loved to drink. I mean, I have loved drinking, but now I choose not to. Without judgment, in Ode to Alcohol, I get carried away telling you in great detail about my love affair with alcohol, decades of drinking around the world in cocktails and wines, extolling virtues galore, to my current enthusiastic sobriety.
In 'tis the season to send holiday cards...or not! I laugh at my foibles as a stand-in for when we don’t measure up to what everyone else thinks we should do. I’m a believer that few people have Norman Rockwell holidays. I certainly don’t.
In An open letter to the California Black Bears residing in Claraboya, Wilderness Park adjacent to the Village of Claremont in Los Angeles County, State of California, I satirically ponder whose territory is my backyard, anyway, and in Intergenerational Communication as an Antidote to the Holiday Blues, I touch on the phenomena when everyone thinks everyone else is having a better time, being closer to their family and friends during the holiday than you are.
So that’s it, folks. Please subscribe (for free, there’s no paywall, everyone gets everything). In 2024, you will read about my journey from illness to wellness, a journey that took 12 years, during which I lost 35 pounds and stopped taking seven prescriptions. I’ll also develop “Sangamon Stories” and tell you more about growing up in the 1950s on a working farm, being raised by a Ted Lasso kind of a dad.
Happy New Year
Thank you for including me in this list, Janice! What a pleasure to be on this journey with you. Thank you for being a constant source of inspiration and encouragement to me. xo