Mammaw is on the right of the featured image above. She is snapping beans, no doubt to dry them and make her famous shucky beans. “Every gray hair she had looked like a corn silk” -Mom. Every couple weeks, I go out to the balcony, sit back with some red wine, watch the absolutely great…
I guess it’s technically spring now, but it just goes to show how long it’s been since I first started this post–and wrote nothing on it–until now. So many things have been going on that I just haven’t had time to blog. One is a new series’ focus at eco-fiction, which I’ll announce shortly. Another…
It’s a few days late, but happy new year to readers of this blog. I wanted to finally take time to sit down and write about my best memories from 2017. I came into the year still reeling and in awe of my trip to Ireland the summer prior. This single but awesome experience really…
The other day author Lidia Yuknavitch posted on Twitter, oh fall. come. It doesn’t take a great many words to summon a large expectation and dream, and I echo her thoughts in this post, at least how I read them. It is not here yet, only in my dreams. I’ve waddled through summer like a…
The other morning, after my bear encounter, my husband heard a couple roars out in our back yard. It was early, and I didn’t hear it, and he didn’t get up to look, but I think our bear–and perhaps the sow–may have been back? I find myself constantly looking outside for black bears. On Saturday…
It has been a great year for me. I kept up running and began trail running; then I began hiking between runs. Though the past few weeks have been wrought with ice, snow, and a fractured toe, I’ve returned to running on a treadmill and hiked or snow-shoed in the snow. Coming home from work…
This is the 7th anniversary of my father’s death. I spent the day forgetting about it and remembering it. I ran a beautiful hour through Mundy Park. I explored different places, including an old logging road. I had an awesome run and remembered something my mom recently told me: my dad used to run before…
Perhaps the seed was planted when my Pappaw Collins held a conch shell up to my ear when I was very young. He said, “Listen, you can hear the ocean.” Years later I would find myself leaving my life-long home of the Midwest and heading to southern California, partially on a whim but with a…
It is that time of the year to reflect and, regardless of whether one likes to partition life into time segments like years, I think it’s useful to have a time of year to do real reflection on the past and to renew hope for the future. I love this time of year. It means…
Every day of running this summer has been one of choice: Choosing the coolest days of the week to run Choosing the coolest times of those days to run, even if it means getting up at 5:30 am With the exception of a couple cool runs, the summer has been relentlessly uncomfortable for runners. Summer…
