The first time I got pregnant, I miscarried in the bathroom of my childhood home.

At the time, I lived in a South St. Louis apartment and had just started graduate school at St. Louis University. Six months prior, my mom had sent my oldest brother across country to fetch me home from Boston. As we dipped down the exit ramp to I-70 near the Gateway Arch, I leaned against the window of my mother’s car and fixed my dull gaze on the blue eyes reflected there.

I sat on the toilet in a pool of blood while my mother banged on the door, demanding entry. “It’s not locked,” I finally summoned the strength to say, and she slipped inside. She studied my face, then the floor. “Get in the shower,” she instructed. “I’ll clean up.” Ten minutes later, she wrapped me in layers of cotton, slipped me into bed, and put a cup of hot tea on the bedside table. She murmured words of instruction, some from herself, some from whatever doctor from her work she found on call that evening, probably a cardiologist, since she ran the EKG department at the county hospital.

I turned my face to the wall, pulled the blanket close, and fell asleep with salty tears still damp on my cheeks.

A decade or so later, another county doctor, this one in Arkansas, explained that my kidney infection had caused me to lose the child that my first husband and I so desperately hoped would save our marriage. We both understood the risk of holding a faltering relationship together in such a dysfunctional way, but we each wanted children and figured it could work. Weeks later, he stood arguing with me as I loaded what I could into my Nissan Sentra and headed to a new job in Fayetteville, without him, without even a copy of our marriage certificate.

In early 1991, I faced the grim situation again, alone at my house in Winslow. Cold, dreary, sad — all of those things, and angry, too — I begged the service to page my midwife or the OB-GYN for whom she worked. An hour later, the two of them peeked over the drapes with grins on their sweaty faces, and broke the news: There’s another baby.

Premature labor after premature labor almost cost me that child, too. Women’s ailments always get insulting names. Mine had the awful brand of “cervical incompetence”. My body couldn’t even do what many in the south presume to be its one job.

But I showed them. On 08 July 1991, six weeks before his due date, Patrick Charles Corley entered laughing, twenty-one inches long and weighing 7 lbs. and 10 ozs. to the astonishment of everyone in the labor and delivery room. Several forgettable exclamations preceded the moment when they laid my son across my chest. My friend Laura Barclay leaned against my shoulder and cooed at the infant. I could only stare.

I do not speak for my child; and I will not try to analyze the virtues of my performance over the last thirty-four years. Some might say that I failed; others would insist on my success. Standing here, on the nation’s western edge and twenty-five hundred miles from where he lives, I behold the long stretch of days between my first long draw of his newborn fragrance and our brief exchange on the phone this morning. So many choices that I might not make in the same way fill the days between those moments. So many chances fell away untaken. So many long nights, dark skies, and grey dawns scattered in the years since his birth that I can no longer remember each one.

There is a certain scene from the movie, “When A Man Loves A Woman” that haunts me whenever I try to assess my performance as “Patrick Corley’s Mommy”. Separated from his wife, the husband, played by Andy Garcia, goes first to his daughter and then to his stepdaughter to say goodbye. He leans down to his stepdaughter and tells her, “I’m sorry for all the kinds of daddy that I have and have not been ever since I met you.”

That’s how I feel.

In my son’s childhood, we banged wooden spoons on pots and pans outside to herald the new year, just as I had done in my mother’s front yard. I served the kind of macaroni and cheese that he and his friends preferred, until they started insisting on fettucine alfredo instead. His shelves held books, board games, and Legos. One Christmas, he belatedly disclosed that he had asked Santa for a Batman with light-up eyes. I scoured the stores, increasingly desperate. In one Wal-Mart, I climbed to the top of a stack of returned items just two or three days before Christmas Eve. A sales clerk said, Ma’am, you’ve been searching a long time; did you get what you wanted? and I snapped, No, I wanted a girl.

But I never meant that. I told my son that Santa ran out of light-up Batmans and he believed me. A week later, for no good reason, I strolled through a toy aisle and, to my astonishment, found the damn thing. I bought it at half-price on a year-end sale. I brought it home in secret, wrapped it in left-over Santa paper, and stashed it behind the couch. During Saturday cleaning, i asked my five-year-old to help me vacuum. He drew the heavy box out and carefully removed the paper while I feigned surprise.

I will never forget his upturned face and his whispered words: Mama! He remembered! We must have missed it, hidden back here! He kept that Batman on his dresser for a decade. I never could decide whether I did the right thing, or how long it took him to figure it out.

I put my son through so much. His father left me before his birth. I married when he was eight; divorced before he turned sixteen; and married again during spring break in his second year of college. I will not pretend to speak for him but all of it seems so clumsy now. I wanted to be a good mother. I needed advice so many times and had no one to whom I felt I could turn. My own mother died six years before his birth. My sisters helped as much as they could from far away. But more than anything, I lacked enough knowledge even to formulate the right questions.

Another movie scene: A Thousand Clowns, the main character a bachelor trying to raise his sister’s son. They muddle through a few years before Social Services comes calling. Eventually, the uncle admits that he might or might not have been a good substitute parent to the boy. All I can ask is that he speaks well of me in therapy one day.

I get that.

I’ve always believed that my mother did the best that she could with the hand dealt to her by the universe. She married a man traumatized by combat duty in World War II before informed diagnosis brought help to service members. She bore eight children and worked full-time — when she was not busy changing diapers, posting bail, or despairing. I tried to channel her kindness and some of her tenacity. I asked myself, over and over, What would Mom do? Do that, I would urge myself. But I don’t know whether I guessed right and I certainly do not claim that I did right.

I think about her almost as much as I think about my child. As for Patrick, I tell myself that he has an inner strength that he himself has cultivated, with little or no help from me. I see her gentleness in his eyes. I hear her cadence in his voice. I know, as surely as I know that I am sitting at the desk of my mother-in-law’s antique secretary, that my mother would respect, admire, and cherish my son. She would be so proud of what he has made of himself. She would tell me, Your boy will be fine. He has what it takes. He has an enduring spirit. He has a wise soul.

Mother, oh Mother! I long to see the deep brown of your eyes, to hear your throaty chuckle, to see you skip across the front yard. I crave one more day with you. I want to drive across this country, stop in Jennings to load you into the car, and travel with you to Chicago. We would sit on a bench by the Lake, with my son who has grown to be a man. He would talk of what he has seen and what he has learned. I would stay silent. I would barely breathe. The two of you would rise from that bench and stroll, hand in hand, down the pathway while I held very still. I would turn my face to the heavens and let the breeze gently dry the tears which have for so long lingered on my cheeks.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®

Whatever else one can say about my father — and much could be said, though little of virtue — I owe him this much: When faced with the prospect of his little girl never walking again, he taught me instead to read.

I recall sitting at the table with him at a tender age, less than four, certainly, in front of a newspaper. He would place one finger on the trembling page, holding it firmly with a hand that also clutched a Camel straight. A cup and saucer stood at his elbow, full of over-perked coffee. He probably had not shaved, and the acrid smell of last night’s beer mixed with stale smoke and chagrin. I might care, a few years later; but at that moment, I heeded none of that.

Instead, I squinted and fixed my blue gaze on the starkness of black type against a greyish background. His voice cut through my confusion as he sounded words and instructed me to repeat them. I couldn’t say, more than six decades hence, to where the other kids had scattered. Five older ones ranging from twelve to six probably had jumped at the chance to play for a bit without anxiously waiting for the sharp snap of a displeased patriarch.

Throughout my childhood, books comforted me. Our Grandmother Corley sent stacks of Reader’s Digest Condensed volumes, where I read classics without realizing their truncated nature. As an adult, I devoured the full-length versions, shaking my head, feeling cheated. But through my grade school years, those books meant so much — escape, education, enlightenment, everything that our chaotic home lacked.

Last evening, I struggled to find a comfortable position while thinking about various people whose current troubles worry me. Without a strong religion, I feel a bit like a fraud sending prayers into the ozone. That’s the trouble with basic beliefs. The existence of a divine entity gives me comfort but not bargaining power, usually reserved for those bound by an intricate and overbearing dogma.

I suddenly remembered a book that had come to us in one of the bonus boxes from Grandma. The Reason for Ann held a collection of novellas between its blue covers. The title story centers on two recording angels assigned to watch over a ne’er-do-well, whose earthly antics they bemoan. Each exploit and misstep reflects on ledger pages in carefully drawn red marks; the few good deeds appeared in black alongside credits for his mother’s prayers.

Somewhere along the way, their scallywag charge enlisted to serve in the Korean War. On the same day he met Ann, a beautiful, gentle creature for whom the angels could see no reason. The fellow did not deserve the lovely and kind woman. Yet she had come into his life. Against all odds, it seemed they loved each other.

Off he went to battle, earning his pilot’s wings. In the sky, as they watched, he met what the book marked as his certain end. The ink stopped; the remaining pages blank. One angel went off to see the fellow’s judgment hour, while the other hung his head and wept.

And yet: he survived. They watched from the golden mist and a figure emerged: Ann, on her knees in a chapel, head bowed, eyes closed. At last, they understood the reason for Ann.

In the dark of my tiny house, I said a prayer for my loved ones who face their own difficulties — none fatal, none terminal, but still bothersome, and still perhaps reason enough for divine intervention. Though I closed my eyes, I did not bend a knee. I did not want whatever divine spirit might be listening to find me pretentious. I only wanted to let he, she, or it know that if, somehow, the brush could raise and set a few more rows of lovely black characters to flow across the page, I would be ever so grateful indeed.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®

I had to scroll through Rob Wells’ obituary to recall how we got connected. Mutual friends who attended the Gerry Spence Trial Lawyers College virtually introduced us. Years ago, I accepted his friend request on Facebook and I have followed his astonishing and poignant life ever since that fortuitous and ephemeral meeting.

Rob never knew the most ironic factoid about our dubious link. Both he and the people we knew in common had intensely positive feelings about the famous Gerry Spence, once oft-lauded advocate for the likes of Willie Nelson and Karen Silkwood. They studied his techniques and perhaps basked in the glory of his heralded light. I, on the other hand, knew him in a different time and place. I had a lesser view of the man. I never shared that with Rob, though; I never had or took the chance.

Instead, like many folks who knew him twice or thrice removed, I merely marveled at his unblemished but human persona. I read posts about his courtroom conduct, the meetings that he had with clients, his view of the law whom we and so many of our sisters and brothers at the bar hold dear. I watched clips of him playing the guitar and singing which he offered as gifts to anyone online late or early, anyone in need of something in which to lose themselves.

I found myself replaying these musical gems time and time again. I knew the small smiles he made at slight stumbles, and the little gleam in his eye when he finessed a complicated bridge. I anticipated the heartwarming glow at the end, when he closed with a gentle comment. I felt his warmth penetrating the vastness of the space between us.

Of his prowess as counsel, I have not one tiny shred of doubt though I’ve never seen him argue in a court of law. His posts convinced me that he knew of what he spoke. The zeal shone through the monitor. I know quality legal representation when I read about it. As a forty-plus year attorney myself, I envied his relentless dedication and the deftness that I could discern between the lines of his accounts. Though I never sat in the courtroom where he practiced, or heard a recording, I have no doubt that he commanded the respect of any jurist before whom he rose to assume the podium.

Years ago, I sat in my parents’ living room talking about law school with my uncle Bob, an attorney himself and my father’s baby brother. A final exam in my Contracts class loomed, posing me a bit of stress. My uncle smiled and linked his hands around his knees. Contracts are easy, he opined. Offer, acceptance, consideration, bargained-for exchange, capacity to contract, and adherence to the requirements of the statute of frauds. As I struggled to repeat the litany, he laughed. Once you get beyond this simple stuff, you’ll ascend to glory, he assured me. Trial advocacy, that’s the thing! That’s the real heart of the law.

Rob Wells understood that. He stayed true to the purpose of our profession: Representation of those who cannot adequately speak for themselves. For that, though I did not know him in person, I much admired everything I knew of him. Most of us strain to make our mark as guardians of democracy now and again; Rob Wells personified that mandate.

But wait; there’s more. In addition to his obvious prowess in his chosen vocation, Rob Wells also appeared to be an amazing husband and a truly astounding father. His photographs of himself and his beloved Ceil; his proud boasts about the accomplishments of his adult children; and the stories that he told of his life with the whole lot mesmerized me. If his wife set a pretty table or sewed a lovely curtain, Rob posted snapshots taken from every angle. The dogs cavorted; the mother-in-law visited; the children and he organized glorious vacations. All of it deserved to be documented and catalogued, then shared with his friends in the virtual world.

We hung on every word. I don’t know how others responded, but from the other side of my laptop, I gravitated between delight and jealousy. But I could see the virtue of his life, the connection among the members of his inner circle, and the deep devotion that they all held for one another. It rang true. I never doubted; I never once thought, Ah, but what about when there’s no camera? What am I not seeing? What Rob Wells felt for his family, and they for him, cannot be easily faked even in this day of dazzling artificial intelligence.

Rob Wells died three days ago. I did not know he had been sick, nor had I noticed a dearth of posts from his page. My life gets busy and I spend less time on social media. In retrospect, I realize that his name had not appeared in my feed of late. His son posted about his death and the illness which he deliberately hid from the outside world. I chuckled when I read that, for such self-effacing modesty seems entirely consistent with what I knew of him.

His wife and children will miss him with an excruciating pain that I can only imagine. His pets will pace in the hallway, looking to the doors, awaiting his step. His pen will lay motionless upon his desk. Clients will let their hands drop to their sides, forlorn without their champion. There is now, and will ever be, a Rob-Wells-shaped hole in the universe. A much-loved man has passed from this world, to what ever reward the universe holds for him. Rest well, my friend. Though I never met you in real time, I mourn your passing even as I stand immeasurably grateful for the gift of knowing you.

In my lost year, 2014, I could go to a coffee house, post my presence on social media, and within a half hour, someone would appear at the doorway to spend time with me. Jeanne Jasperse, Penny Thieme, Genevieve Casey — any number of wonderful folks would stop their normal daily routine to come order coffee and share the events of their lives.

Today the press of my solitude bears upon me. I gaze outside at the painfully tender blue of the sky and wonder what my friends back home would think of my life today. Jeanne left us years ago but I still see her in relief against the bright sun of the open doorway of Homer’s Coffee Shop. I still hear the lilt of her voice as she pulled out a chair. Hey girl. My heart beats within my chest in an unbearably poignant rhythm.

I had a sudden urge to see a particular picture of my mother and me. I struggled with the search bar of my old laptop. Something in my eyes, I suppose; a sudden sting. I tried to sort by name but the download grouped itself by date. The longest bunch just bore a simple heading: A long time ago. Oh yes.

I realize that I lost most of my scanned photos in the hack of my website. I get a little desperate, running search after search. Finally I find it in an album on Facebook. I study our profiles. I remember that day. I’m 17 or 18 in the photo; my mother must be nearly 50. You cannot see the sorrow in our hearts but those years held very few quiet hours. Yet in that moment, on the porch of an historic house in St. Louis, we could have been any mother, any daughter. My heart contracts.

Years ago, in a book of essays and short stories called Solo: Women on Women Alone, I read someone’s account of solitary life. Most of the time, I’m all right, she remarked. I go about life without a care. But once in a while, I come home and check the closets and under the bed. I imagined her going through the apartment. Did she fear finding someone hiding there? Or would she draw him out, make a cup of tea, and serve him dinner? Was it the thought of a crouched figure that frightened her or the anguish of the empty spaces?

Today I dwell on every bad decision that I’ve ever made. I cannot help it. It is I who finds the silence haunting; I who parks the car and listens as the motor cools, wondering what everyone else has found to occupy their day. I talk to my mother, to Penny, to my sister and my son. But mostly in my head, in the stillness. I study Jeanne’s grin as she strolls through the coffee shop. Hey, girl, I tell her. Long time no see.

Life among the missing holds little joy, except the vague shadows of pleasant hours gone by. Yet still do I cling to its brittle contours. The faces might eventually fade, but the feelings will ever linger. I find some comfort there.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®

I fought a sudden rainstorm to get to a stopping point and roll down my window. Still, I did not move with sufficient speed to snap a decent photo of the rainbow over the Pacific. I had kept my eye on it, stunned. I could see both ends, sharp against the grey sky over the stormy expanse of sea. But the rain dissipated the dazzling color. I did as well as I could, content with a pale glimmer of the vivid arch that I will never forget.

My engine hummed as I sat, awe-struck, delighted. Eventually, I put the car in drive and continued south. Pigeon Point stood tall against that same drab expanse. On my first trip to California, a friend had admonished me not to miss the sight of her. I still cannot travel westward without straining to rearrange my schedule for a fresh glimpse.

She rises from a field of ice plants, small buildings crouched at her majestic base. I study the grand height, noting the guy wires that signal rehabilitation underway. How many ships have found the harbor with the steady flash of her light? I take some comfort from her constant presence.

After a brief detour for coffee and a gluten-free muffin, I headed inland with a profound sense of deep ambivalence. My mood darkened as I drew further east, as the ocean’s heady fragrance faded from the air around me. Grim news blared from the sound system, podcast after podcast that I had ignored all weekend. The nation’s prospects had not improved since I left home on Friday. Perhaps I should have hunkered down at Montara.

As I trudged from car to house, something different about the display of plants around my porch steps caught my eye. A new rock admonished me: Be Kind! I studied the writing, wondering who had stopped to leave this message. Had they singled me out? Did the entire park receive this guidance? And why face it towards my returning gaze, instead of hitting me with the firm suggestion as I left home of a morning? Did the speaker want me to treat myself with care? Was the rock intended as a condemnation or an entreaty?

I went inside, none the wiser. I left the rock where its creator had chosen to place it. Being kind has always been my goal, even though reasonable minds could differ on the method to my madness. I suppose I might have wronged someone. I send a silent prayer to the universe, that it might always help me strike a balance between my moral underpinnings and the social niceties that others expect me to observe.

Sitting in the perfect chair that my friend Tim Anderson gave me, fatigue washes across my aching body. I walked too far on Saturday, consigning me to rest that evening and into Sunday. I need to lose ten or twenty pounds; I must get back to regular yoga and deep breathing. Be kind, indeed. And lest we not forget, charity begins at home. Perhaps the rest will follow as night flows from the dying day.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®

The sound of the ocean has been a lullaby for me since I first came to California in 2015. I had lived on the Atlantic years before that, and had found her to be cold and unforgiving. Born and raised in St. Louis, migrating to Kansas City, and even spending a year in Jasper, Arkansas, I feel comfortable beside a river. I waded in the Meramec once, waist deep and laughing, clinging to my brother Mark’s hand and protesting all the way.

Only driving down the Coastal Highway that first time did I find solace, a strange combination of giddiness and longing. A friend had urged me to visit Pigeon Point; I’ve told this story many times. It did not disappoint me, and I repeatedly returned in those first two years of quarterly visits to Stanford. Once I moved here, in the late days of 2017, I started spending as much time as possible out this way. I had intended to live north of the Bay, but fate had other plans for me and I found myself on the banks of yet another river, with only the occasional weekend beside the sea.

On my arrival last night, I felt the old juice flow through my veins. Here was the hostel scene that had cradled me during my early days of trying to fit into the western world. I had stayed at Montara several times, and though I had never found it as homey as Pigeon Point, in truth it always seemed to be more well run. It still is; but everything evolves. The Covid years worked their ways with this place, too; and it is not as I remember.

The big building with its twin expanses of guest room flanking a welcoming central office has been split into two separate wings by erecting a make-shift wall. The employee area has been relocated to where I remember yoga classes being held. A gate stretches across the upper entrance, with a keypad on the right where a person with mobility impairments cannot hope to reach it. I’ve had to summon help both times I’ve come to the property, on arrival and late this afternoon.

I, too, have changed. I went walking on Gregorio Beach this morning, and now my back spasms in protest. Rather than sit on the point and watch the sun set as I did last night, or writing at the kitchen table, my emergency stash of Tylenol and I huddle near the window adjacent to my bed. I had the women’s common sleeping quarters to myself last night, but tonight a couple of women have checked into the hostel and stashed their belongings on bunks near mine. I don’t mind that; but in visits past, I would be out in the kitchen talking to my fellow travelers. Tonight I can but rest, and ponder the wisdom of hauling a duffel, a soft-side cooler, and my laptop bag for this short sojourn.

Today I had planned to lunch at Half-Moon Bay Brewery, where I have had many a lovely meal. I made scrambled eggs for myself at 7, before heading to the seaside for my long-awaited stroll. I planned to have a sandwich and something salty to go with it, fixed in their slightly pretentious but quite tasty style. By the time I got to La Granada and the restaurant, pain gripped me. I knew that I couldn’t even walk from the parking lot to the outdoor seating. My head fell to the steering wheel. Tears welled in my eyes.

A few yards down the road, I found myself thinking, I just need somewhere I can park right by the door. Suddenly it appeared: A funny sort of pub, Old Princeton Landing, almost a sports bar, with a wide outdoor area filled with college students. Right there, beside them, a handicapped parking spot into which I pulled without signaling to the dismay of the car behind me.

I had few hopes for the place but a cheerful young man sprang from behind the counter and held the door for me. He assured me that he would take my order table-side even though they had counter-service. I scanned the menu with trepidation, finally ordering Eggs Benedict without ham. Surely a place with concrete floors and neon beer signs would make a mess of this dish, I told myself. But the only other choices were fish tacos, burgers, or chili.

Imagine my astonishment at the lovely plate of food he brought! Perfectly poached eggs, a tangy Hollandaise, and potatoes with a crisp exterior and soft, billowy centers. I didn’t even mind the wretched coffee, as I broke the yoke and watched it seep into the English muffin that I figured I could risk, having not had any gluten for weeks. I enjoyed every bite.

Afterward, I drove to Pacifica, hoping to browse in my favorite antique store. Again, though, the spasms in my back intervened. Instead I parked alongside the railing adjacent to the pier and watched the waves through the railing. People strolled by my car, many holding fishing poles. I closed my eyes and remembered my time along the pier, a few years ago, right as lockdown lifted in early 2021. Standing at the end of the long expanse, music blasting around me, children darting in and out among their silent parents. Life on the pier. I brushed away the memory and watched the far horizon, where a cargo ship made its slow way to San Francisco.

When I got back to the hostel, I tried to open the gate without calling for help but in the end, I couldn’t make it back to the car before the even the slow metal barrier clanged shut. I drove down the hill to the handicapped parking spot, and inched into the side door of the dorm. A short nap helped, but I won’t be running races any time soon.

Now I listen to the song of the sea as the ladies sharing this room unpack and settle. The waves rise and fall on the rocks beneath the point. Clouds covered the sunset, so I didn’t miss anything after all. A chill has settled with the gathering dark. I hope that I will be able to sleep this night for every fiber of my being cries for reprieve. I return to the Delta tomorrow; to my tiny house nestled in a row of other tiny houses, on the banks of the San Joaquin, far away from my beloved Pacific. As my body strains to relax against the metal headboard, I wonder whether Thomas Wolfe might have been right after all.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®

Every journey has a moment when getting there ceases to be the point and the destination becomes paramount. For me, on the increasingly rare weekend when I can escape my every day life, that moment occurs when I crest a hill or take a turn in the highway and my Pacific lies before me.

This weekend afforded me such a time. A couple of gracious creatives who belong to the collective in which I typically toil for the three days after my work-week agreed to staff the shop. I loaded more food than I can eat in sixty hours in my nearly cleared back seat, along with my laptop, the latest copy of The Atlantic, and a weird mystery novel that I found in a thrift store when I went for my fourth or fifth attempt to get properly made glasses at UC Berkeley on Wednesday. I wouldn’t cross the picket line at Urban Ore, so I made my way inland and stopped at Habitat Restore, where I got a sweet little chair for fourteen bucks and this book for half off of a dollar. I felt smug and looked heavenward to see if Jimmy approved as the nice man at the loading dock tucked the chair into my RAV4.

This morning, after getting coffee at my favorite place, the Isleton Coffee Company, and checking with Ruthie at Mubdie’s, I headed west. I stopped for water and scrolled through Substack until I found The Bulwark‘s Secret Podcast. Jonathan V. Last and Bill Kristol, the latter substituting for Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell, analyzed the authoritarian tendencies of the current administration for an hour as I made my way to the Bay. I might have missed it, but JVL seemed to forget to say, Rebecca, take us out, before the strains of the signature song flooded my vehicle. It’s Friday, Friday. . .

I’m usually at home when I watch the Secret pod (so named because only paid subscribers get access to the full broadcast). The frolicking melody fills my tiny house. But the car fairly rocks as the song swells. Just as the dancing teens hit the wild crescendo, I slip onto the Coastal Highway and the sea comes into view. The moment arrives. The destination supersedes the journey as the pivotal focus. My soul stirs.

I glide south, through Pacifica, stopping for another coffee at Soul Grind, a place that I discovered last year and quite enjoy. With an Americano and a piece of gluten-free almond cake that looks possibly house-made and has what I believe you might call a tender crumb, I sat at a table by two women and an exceedingly excitable girl of six or seven. I cannot see the ocean but I hear the call through the large, open folding doors. A few minutes before I got to the cafe, I had leaned on the hood of my car in front of Rockaway Beach. Ten foot waves crashed as high as the rail. A young man standing beside me laughed as he filmed the swell. Our eyes met. We could have been anyone — virtual strangers, yes; but also mother and son, two friends, a couple of co-workers. It’s amazing, he exclaimed. I had to agree.

At 3:00 o’clock, I presented myself at the gate to Montara, the hostel at which I had booked a bed for two nights. I wanted one of the singles, but the women’s shared room has no one else tonight and I can probably handle one night in the company of traveling students tomorrow, if any come. I dragged my food into the building and stashed it with my name affixed, just as I had done many times in the carefree years. A few things have changed, but the smell of salt still clings to the air and the old wooden fences still groan beneath the weight of the ages.

I raise the window beside the table so I can hear the voice of the Pacific reminding me of her unending presence. Other visitors wander into the room, checking cupboards, assessing available cookware, talking about supper. Wave after wave lifts and slams against the craggy shoreline. I breathe — in, out, in, out. I close my eyes. I have come home.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®

On Saturday, 16 March 2025, the mail brought two indicia of identity: My 42nd Missouri Bar card, and a letter from the Internal Revenue Service advising me of income reported under my name and Social Security number in 2017 from a company for which I have never worked and of which I have never heard.

My loss of identity began late that year, as I wound down my law practice and began to surrender myself to a sort of limbo in which the person whom I had been since 1983 yielded to the person into whom I tried to mold myself. I sold the home I had owned for 25 years, stopped taking new clients, yielded the office which I had occupied since 2010, and headed west to a state which would tolerate but never understand my pronunciation of certain revealing words. When the winter rain broke the five-year drought in my adopted home state a few weeks later, I put away my signature Corley Law Firm ice scraper and my long coat. The woman into whom I had morphed would not need them again.

For a couple of years, I took inactive status from the Missouri Bar. I still paid dues, albeit a lower sum. I got the card but no longer had to meet the CLE requirement. I went about my days in my new guise as a nonprofessional, sitting back and letting the California lawyers for whom I did freelance work articulate legal concepts into the air around me as though I had just presented myself for a first-year lecture.

I sought refuge in the writing that had always sustained me, from my elementary days on the sidelines of volleyball games to the dark hours of a Scotch-soaked college dorm life. In my heart, I clung to the definition of “lawyer” (a person with a degree from law school), even though in that gap of time, I could not call myself an “attorney” (someone licensed to practice law). When my employer’s clients treated me in that dismissive way that people use for secretaries, the offhanded manner that secretaries certainly do not themselves deserve, I gritted my teeth. I reminded myself that my worth does not depend on their opinion of me. I quietly drafted their trusts, wills, and powers of attorney. I ghost-wrote letters, because, as Alan White once proclaimed, I do in fact give good letter.

But when I discovered that I could not even do volunteer work while classified as “inactive”, I pulled the plug on reactivation. My annual dues tripled and once again I had to take courses to maintain my prowess, with a few added requirements with which I had to accelerate familiarity but in no way resented. I was, and always would be, a proud member of the Missouri Bar. A lawyer. An attorney. A member of the profession that Shakespeare vowed to sacrifice first before all others.

This evening, I studied the letter explaining the tax fraud that seems to have occurred in my name. I penned a reply, providing the necessary information from which, I assume, the confusion will eventually be resolved. I did an internet search on the company where the false or mistaken reporting apparently occurred. For a dreamy few minutes, the life of an employee there appealed to me. What would I have done there? Would I have lived in a downtown loft, or out in the suburbs, riding the commuter train each morning? Would I have made friends or eaten lunch alone on a park bench in front of the building? What nightlife would await me, when I shut down my computer and sashayed onto the elevator at five o’clock?

Would I luxuriate in that existence? Or would I feel as much at sea in that life as I do in this? Neither fish nor fowl; sitting tucked into the corner of an actual file room, growing ever distant from the days when I confidently walked the marble corridors and carelessly swung open the courtroom doors.

I tucked my new bar card into my wallet and lifted my letter to the IRS from the printer. I remembered a time in my childhood when my mother accidently received several hundred extra dollars from a bank teller. Her hands shook when she counted the bills in the little envelope. Her eyes met mine and a stranger lurked behind them. Years later, I would write these words: Bills were paid in fantasy and full / but she returned the wrong she had been given / lamenting evermore what might have been.

I sealed the envelope on my imaginary existence, affixed a stamp, and tucked it into my small brown purse. Then I went about my evening’s preparations for the coming workday.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®

Years ago, I showed my book of poetry to a would-be lover, he himself a published wordsmith of the rhyming sort. He sat in a chair near the bay window in one of the Kansas City apartments in which I so ignobly misspent my youth. He disconsolately flipped pages. I gazed across the room, awaiting his decree. “They’re nice little homespun ditties,” he finally remarked.

I put the slim journal away and poured us each another glass of single malt. The conversation turned to other, less fraught pursuits, like where we would go to dinner and, quite frankly, his place or mine. I don’t remember the rest of the evening, overshadowed as it necessarily became with the embarrassed self-indulgence that drove me to offer my scribblings for his merciless perusal.

Years later, my estranged second husband sent me an email on reading something that I sent into the interwebs, one of these blithely tendered essays. I see you’ve found your voice, he noted. Well done, you.

I recently organized the rubble shoved beneath the bed in my lofted sleeping room. I found a handful of empty notebooks and one or two with carefully copied renditions of my hopeful poems. A familiar profile seen from a distance; / a cheek that I have touched. / A chin I have seen tremble. I turn the page. My soul is in my spinal cord. I know it’s there. / When I walk across the street, people stare. I let the volume drop to the oak table on which my printer rests. I lift another one, older, from my college days. What can I say to she who dried my tears, who spent too much time in crowded hospital rooms, and jails? I do not know / and so I talk of the silver markets / and over-sprouted beans. A decade later: The phone rings, and my sister says: Mary, it’s time to come home / and I know that she who once / so tenderly dried my tears / has gone home.

The verses proudly perch on the pages where I have penned them. Some bear dates; none come from this era, my essay era. I might have a few more somewhere, more recently authored. But most come from the decades when I still believed that I could only properly express myself in the lilting cadence of poetry. In that era, three or four of my poems got chosen for publication in a literary magazine. I can’t prove that; the journal folded years ago and I checked their archives without success. But I remember. I can even recite them, though I never do except silently, to remind myself that someone once thought my poetry had value.

I know a gifted photographer who strives to be a painter. The powerful images that this person captures with a lens haunt me; but still, they think only a canvas and brush produce genuine art. I understand. People like my essays; I won many a motion with my skillful legal composition. Like Niggle with his leaves, I hammer out a perfect sentence, stringing together a whole slew of them into an orderly package, and thus to the logical and satisfying end.

The fundamental flaw in this design lies with my personal satisfaction. A book takes so long; an essay overbears; a paragraph bogs one down in its internal structure. But oh, the poem! Lyrical, rhythmic, lilting. No extraneous words clutter its structure. If inside the heart of every goose there lurks a swan, my own breast holds the soul of a poet, longing to be free but never quite escaping the weight of its mournful and trundling pronouncements.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®

In case you are interested, here are two poems of mine, published as a pair in circa 1978, in Eads Bridge, the literary journal of St. Louis University.

RED
knows limitless potential
for its rage is great
its enthusiasm
endless
its beauty renowned
while green is only
the cool air and
the chilled voice
that I use to send you home.

And what is blue,
but all that I have in me?
The rain we felt in April,
the wind,
all the poems that you read me.
Dresses that I wore to school
mirrors from which my image shone
a butterfly, trapped briefly then released
a child, once real then gone.
More, much more, too much to say
But there, and all in BLUE.

Both ©M. Corinne Corley, 1978, 2025. Like all my writings, and my photographs, these belong to me and are registered or in process of registration. Please do not reprint for any reason without permission. Thank you.

When I first built my tiny house, I had this idea that people would use my bed like a couch. I had a drop-loft installed to make an upstairs study, under which we placed a sleeping cubby. Large rolling drawers held my off-season clothing and any other storage items. With a small side table and a little chair, I felt the area could double as a parlor.

Not so. I learned that only children and gay couples felt comfortable sitting on my bed, even neatly made with many pillows along the back wall. While I know a lot of gay couples and a fair number of children, I wanted everyone to feel at ease. I also discovered that I craved a private space. So I sacrificed my writing loft and had a carpenter tear out the bed.

We undertook that project four years ago. Since then, I have struggled to find a good configuration for my new sitting room. One has to duck to clear the loft; but once inside and seated, people seemed to accept the space, except the accommodations. I tried a trio of love seats and a few different chairs, each slightly different and purchased secondhand. Their bulk and depth forced knees to touch mid-room no matter how I turned them. I kept experimenting, having chosen not to utilize the built-in benches common to most tiny houses. I wanted “real” furniture.

Along the way, I acquired new items to compliment what I already owned. With each experimental configuration, the table that came from home, the wooden child’s dresser made by my ex-husband’s first wife’s grandfather, and my angel shelves, all found various places. I rotated, shifted, dusted, decorated. I would stand on the perimeter, turning my head this way and that. I sat in each chair, and on the stools. At 5-2, I can get into the space without much trouble, but could a taller person? Would they feel claustrophobic?

Would I even get enough visitors, after seven years as a California resident, to make the effort meaningful?

Home means comfort to me, safety, peace, and quiet. If people do stop by, for a cup of tea or a glass of wine, I want these sensations to envelope them. Let us sit together, even if in silence. Let the ills of the world not bother us. Do not open the door to sorrow.

The sitting room began to coalesce when my friend Tim Anderson swapped a gold chair for an antique platform rocker that I quite liked but which took too much space. Then my second husband passed away, and left me the Amish table that he swore I married him to acquire. I brought a rocker from my porch to save it from the winter’s rain. A certain symbiosis shimmered in the little cave.

My friend Michelle hung the ex’s ex’s grandfather’s cabinet on the wall. I got a new laundry hamper that almost resembles a backrest. I found a lovely pillow in my guest sleeping loft and unfolded the spare wooden chair. Eventually, I would acquire a blue velvet cushion for the rocker; but even so, it seemed inviting.

As time goes by, I find myself more drawn to these serene vignettes. I leave the drama of a chaotic life behind me. I sit in Tim’s chair and spread my little brother’s afghan over my lap. Our Grandma Corley made one for each of us; I keep mine in the cedar chest. My feet rest on the footstool that once belonged to my great-grandmother whose name I bear. In this calm pose, I let myself drift to sleep.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®

If you want to see one of my goofy videos, this one about how I assembled the sitting room, click here.