I know when I go off the deep end. I can tell when my soul has crossed over to something numb or, worse yet, into the darkness. The warning signs show themselves in the condition of my house. Bed not made. Clothes on the floor. Dishes, pots, and utensil in a mess on the counter. …
The Escape of the Covid Captive
I woke up and actually didn't know what to do with myself. It was early September 2020, the nineth month of the worldwide pandemic. I had cleaned out drawers and closets, cut down the understory around my house, sewn masks, painted a picture, lost four pounds on Noom, and relearned how to make yeast bread. …
NonPolitical Rantings from a Covid Captive
Many times over the past few years, I'd say 7 or 8 times, I have received phone calls from my political party asking for a donation. Each time I've told the the solicitor that I wouldn't give money unless I could talk to someone about my concerns. All 7 or 8 times no one ever …
Worries of a Covid Captive Grandma
Before the pandemic, unless I was traveling, I would see my grandkids every other week. I would arrive at their house at noon, stay overnight and then leave around noon the next day. Since the new normal, I have only seen them two times for a total of less hours than I could count on …
Confessions of a Covid Captive
I haven't written in a while because how could I write when I didn't know who I was? How do any of us live when what we thought was normal suddenly disappears, when routine and certainty is gone? How do we understand anything when our reality is so different and our thoughts and feelings have …
Trilliums for Beth J
Dear Beth, We have a tradition since you moved away. Every spring, I post pictures for you of the trilliums that bloom in my woods. I have the white ones and one very large red that you really like. They appear every year at the far corner of my property by the beaver pond. I …
Circles
I have felt fractured, broken the last few days. I was fine getting through almost five weeks of "social distancing". I was doing my part and felt proud of myself. And then things shifted as people without masks in close proximity were protesting the Covid-19 stay-at-home policy. I felt violated and wondered if all my …
Finding Strength in Our Roots
I'm lazy, a blue ribbon procrastinator. I should be writing everyday, I have the time. My writing process is strange. I get an idea, I feel its voice inside me, first hesitant and weak. Its like the old fashion coffee stove top coffee percolator my mom gave me years ago. It is a treasured object …
A Nearby Journey, One Country Road
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust Every weekday morning before I retired, I drove to school down the same country road. You won't find my route in any guidebooks. It is just an ordinary rural asphalt passage through Northern New York State. But …
When did You First Know You were Brave?
My first recollection of fear being used to subdue my spirit was at the age of three, waiting for the “monster” to come through my bedroom window. I would not go to sleep so my mother used a powerful visual to get me to comply, an editorial cartoon of Atlas holding the earth. Fear was …
The Autonomous Traveler 