Where Does The Past Begin?

Great authors turn words of phrase into streams of consciousness. In Amy Tan’s memoir “Where The Past Begins,” she notes the significance of bringing/sending flowers to funerals. I used to wonder why flowers appeared surrounding and draped on caskets. Wasn’t this, I pondered, a cold reminder of life and beauty? A distraction for the living; […]

Hangry For Peaceful Moments

There is a phenomenon in nature known as ‘crown shyness.’ Some trees have gaps in the canopy. Those reluctances to touch are intentional. When I think of trees, -when I depict them in paint or ink or graphite, I am most apt to ensure they intertwine, ‘holding hands in the sky’ (so to speak) much […]

On Gratitude and Having a Voice Again

This is my 200th post. My very first one was about my thumb… This is what Al has been up to: Al has been making salsa all day and will be canning many jars of it. I was walking through the grocery store yesterday as we shopped for the week and chose produce for the […]

On Roadside Ruminations

A poem by James Richardson— ESSAY ON WOOD At dawn when rowboats drum the dock and every door in the breathing house bumps softly as if someone were leaving quietly, I wonder if something in us is made of wood, maybe not quite the heart, knocking softly, or maybe not made of it, but […]

Queen Anne’s Lace and violent outbursts of energy

I love this so-called weed. Don’t go there. This blog is not about that kind of weed. I mean an actual weed. It’s roots smell like carrots. It’s leaves smell like parsley. When seeds form, the flower is a balled up nest. Its white cluster of flowers form an umbrella. It’s the white Queen Anne’s […]

Stroll Through Vermont (in my head)

Cloud collecting mountains surround. Unpaved roads ramble. Roadside produce stands are unmanned by vendors. A locked metal box with a slit in the top is seen amongst the piles of tomatoes, squash and ears of corn with a handwritten note beside it: HONOR SYSTEM- Set your price and leave money in box No views on […]

My Personal Yellow Journey, from Plastic Cups to Coldplay

My mother and I spent a few weeks each summer, and sometimes on school vacations, with her mother; a fragile sprite of a woman who was deaf and lived in a huge white house in Vermont sprawling with cats and houseplants. At bedtime I would take ‘my’ yellow plastic cup from the ‘cupboard’, which was […]