Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Home”
I wake to rain. I am on my hands and worthless knees. I pry and pare back twinflower leaves, free the groundcovers: kinnick-kinnick, thimbleberry, and native wintergreen. Dig and prune. Command the dahlias to grow aligned with their bamboo stakes. My fingernails are crescents of dirt. All I care is to breathe, hidden beneath the reach and lean of these tall, tall western Oregon trees. Last night in the rain, the emperor gong rang…
There is a spectacularly bright full moon out there on this chilly, late November night. Yesterday, I cut the final dahlias blooms of the season. They were looking a little ragged after a few nights of just-around-freezing temperatures and cold wind. Then I tackled the plants with my new, awesome Felco secateurs—they made swift work of stems and stalks
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Here is a simple prompt that can be useful for generating lots of specific detail—memories, images, family history—that can then be mined for creative writing work. I made this list a while back, oh maybe in 2005. Maybe it’s time for me to revisit this prompt again!…
My poem, “Runaway,” appeared in the print collection, Not Somewhere Else But Here: A Contemporary Anthology of Women and Place, published by Sundress Publications in 2014. It was also included in my poetry collection, Every Door Recklessly Ajar…
Actually, we have shiny happy 70-year old linoleum after today. Yes, indeedy, our antique kitchen floor got its first beauty makeover since we bought our house just over nine months ago. First vacuum up the Doug fir needles and cooking schmutz, then mop with Sal Suds, then rinse with clear water. Wait until dry. Then, by hand, apply a thin layer of some yuppie Marmoleum polish
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Today I made a conscious effort to change some of how I do things rather than fixate on what I do and be all crabby about not doing enough, being disciplined, etc. (my usual state). I tried to focus my morning journal pages …
I’m not sure if I can attribute it to being too fond of books, as the Lainie’s Lady sent to me from Brisbane, Australia, by a friend says, quoting Louisa May Alcott, but today my brain has been addled by sickness and general aching malaise…
Another day unfolds in my city life as I reclaim my order and my time after returning from a long, icy trip back east. This is the first day I’ve actually noticed, taken note of just how long the light actually hangs around now that we’ve had almost a week of the clocks sprung ahead….
I arrived back to sane, springing-ahead Portland last night, weary from my sojourn to home turf in northeastern Pennsylvania and a pilgrimage to icy, snow-drift and dreary Ithaca for a friend’s memorial service on March 1st. It was a grueling trip. Lots of down time, time to observe the shabby, broken-down weariness of that part of the east
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Usually we have two holiday trees. But now that we live in the Little House in the Big City, that wasn’t an option this year. Also, neither of us were in the holiday mood, for a whole host of defensible reasons. So, not long after my St. Nicholas Day birthday, …
