Lately it seems easy to discount the world as ugly. It feels impossible to ignore the dangers of modern society as they’re broadcast to our simple, tribal minds in stunning, 4K Ultra HD. But I still strive to find its goodness. I think some of what makes our world is
These past few days I’ve had trouble engaging with the world. I find that the bleak, incessant reel of news that clouds my screens hurts more than it informs. And I, alone in this bedroom that doubles as my workspace, am powerless to do much of anything. Really, I don’t
Blue. Oh so blue. The Eastern Sierras are awash in it. With snowmelt-fed lakes that spill down the mountains and leave wildflowers in their wake. With cool granite and old pines that rest on their sides and allow the beetles to slowly return them to soil. Friendly Steller’s Jays that
This has been a rough one, this week. This damn week. I have just enough energy for a cup of tea (loose leaf jasmine green) and solitude. Perhaps time spent here, on my apartment balcony, in the plastic chair that was made to look like wicker, will smooth my rough
You can hide in the shade of a blue umbrella on the soft sand. You can lie back on the oversized towel that’s been through too many washings and listen to the laughing and the crashing and the crying of gulls. Or you can take the small hand that has
Is life just perspective? On clear nights, when you look to the full moon, do you see the man gazing back at you? Or is it the rabbit you find hiding in the lunar maria? Crouched, still, resplendent. I have to squint to find the man. Tilt my head this
Last night, the hills above Camp Pendleton caught fire, and so I was lulled to sleep by the sharp tang of burning brush, the earth around me blanketed for miles in smoke and ash. As sometimes happens while the earth burns, I dream of water. Of the sea and the
On my way to check the mail yesterday evening I found two little girls lying in the still-warm grass. The elder of the two, towheaded with a face nearly swallowed by her round, red-framed glasses. The younger, a chubby Latina with a wide, gap-toothed grin. They were gazing up into
When I was eight years old I nearly slept through the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Nearly, not for the vigorous tumbling of the great earth, but instead for the violent shouting of my father, “Cassie! Cassie!” as his strong hands wrenched me from bed to join him and my small, frightened brother
I feel Spring creeping in, but maybe there’s time for one last winter beanie. I wanted to run head first into the warmth, the long days, to be like the bright, happy flowers that turn their round faces to the brilliance. But part of me wants to keep the rain.
Creativity is my birthright. A gift of blood. There is not a woman with whom I share the mother line that isn’t called to create. We are writers and bakers, crocheters and painters, gardeners of the earth and spirit alike. My grandmother, the savant. A woman truly gifted. When I
Today is my 7th anniversary. Not the sweet kind; not the kind commemorating union and achievement. The kind that marks hardship. That splits life in two. Into the blissfully ignorant Before. And the horrible After. The hard stop between a great scar down my vulnerable middle. A panic attack. A
Handcrafting a Life 