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Attention is the beginning of devotion. —Mary Oliver I had to think hard about what happened in 2021. It was not a terrible year, not even a bad one. “Inconvenient”, as a friend suggested in 2020, a year that felt much worse. So goodbye to two years of pandemic and hello to a third. I…
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I have a photographic negative showing my grandmother, Fay Fletcher Jackson (before she married Gordon Keays Smith), standing on a Mount Hood glacier that mostly isn’t there anymore. This would be in the early years of the 20th century. She carries a small backpack because she is a very small person and wears heavy boots,…
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I was writing a card to Bette and realized that most things do not matter… the passage of time, the work I still miss doing, the “accomplishments” I would like to detail—none of that really matters. What matters is beauty and people. People and beauty. So here is beauty that I have seen in the…
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Yesterday, which was meant to be our day of rest before the drive to Portland, the Christmas tree leaked.
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I was reading an article from The Guardian on how to deal with Christmas get-together challenges. The author led with “the turkey doesn’t fit in the oven.” [I love that turkey is the English Christmas dinner centerpiece, even though what they serve is a “New World” food, not actually indigenous to Europe. So are tomatoes,…
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Pre-pandemic, we followed a simple route from coast to the city at least twice a month. We left home early and returned before dark. We shopped at the Farmers Market, saw family, went to the music store, visited the nursery, and walked through Powell’s Book Store. We were always in a hurry because of weather…
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Despite my better judgement, I have been reading The Washington Post news articles and comments about the shooting in Michigan. People keep asking why the school didn’t do more. I wish the answers were simple. This is not a day I am supposed to post, and you probably do not want to know. My husband…
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“The Last Day of November” by Jack Ridl by Rattle Jack Ridl THE LAST DAY OF NOVEMBER My wife is at her spinning wheel. Shefirst cleans, dries, and combs the fleece, then dies the wool. She will spin yarn to make a shawl, stocking cap, socks. She disappears into her gentle quiet. I am a third of the…
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As I type this post on the morning of the last day of November, I have over 61k written for National Novel Writing Month. The official goal is 50k of a novel. In case you wonder, a typical novel is around 75-80k, but sixty thousand words is regarded by many as the absolute minimum length…
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Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo (1951- ) The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
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