by Alison Martin | Jun 11, 2019 | Featured, Scuffed Stuff
Just like Jean, Alison honors the men in her life. A humorious and poignant Father’s Day tribute to her father, her husband and her son.
by Alison Martin | May 3, 2019 | Featured, Scuffed Stuff
I have a friend… … who gives me gardenias as a surprise … who makes me laugh till I cry … who always reaches for the check first … who calls me because she knows I have a doctor appointment … who I tell everything to because she never judges … who doesn’t gossip … who...
by Alison Martin | Apr 7, 2019 | Featured, Scuffed Stuff
You can almost hear the uncoupling. “Your mother has 3 weeks to live.” You can feel the lift off. “You’re pregnant.” You can sense the profundity. “You didn’t get the job.”
At that moment, you know that the path, the journey, the track you are on is changing
by Alison Martin | Mar 7, 2019 | Scuffed Stuff
The car bumps through the country road as I sit holding my toe in the Starbucks napkin. My husband drives. My two kids sit in the backseat looking at a meme or a snapchat or a quick-time or… I don’t know… something that makes them laugh on their phones. Little do they...
by Alison Martin | Feb 8, 2019 | Featured, Scuffed Stuff
A friend – a very funny, smart comic – whom I met many years ago when I lived in Boston passed away recently from cancer. I would see him at auditions in LA and we would talk and laugh way past the time we went in the “room”. He was a kind, sweet family...
by Alison Martin | Jan 14, 2019 | Scuffed Stuff
The Soggy Question.Trust is a funny thing. It seems friendly, open, easy… but really I think it’s a tough cookie. It’s all in or nothing, balls to the wall, get in or you’re out… you either leap or you don’t, you either trust or you don’t… it’s hard news, at least for...
by Alison Martin | Dec 10, 2018 | Featured, Scuffed Stuff
The other day I was riding my bike and I was hit by a car. Not badly…but enough that it got my attention. I was holiday shopping and had bags in my bike’s basket. I was crossing the street at a crosswalk at Laurel Canyon Blvd., as the orange walk-hand was...
by Alison Martin | Nov 11, 2018 | Featured, Scuffed Stuff
Oh God, here again. I sit in the ICU next to my mother. I look at her thin skin and her pale lips and I can’t believe we’re here again. The hospital smells stale and dry and hot. Can’t they open a window? The air has a bad, sick taste. I hear strained breathing from...
by Alison Martin | Oct 9, 2018 | Scuffed Stuff
I’m grateful that the wisdom of the past can resonate and reach us where we stand. It’s June 1965. There is a lot going on in our culture. In New York, at the Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University – a strong-willed 56 year-old woman named Helen...
by Alison Martin | Sep 9, 2018 | Scuffed Stuff
IT is… … simple… tender… the image of a tree against the sky through my sunroof while stuck on the 405 freeway… the single tear that rolls down my cheek when my meditation goes deep… my dear friend’s...