When I was a little girl, most weekends my brother and I were packed into my father’s dusty silver Ford Ranger along with an orange cooler filled with Corona beer, Diet Coke, and ham and cheese sandwiches to set off for the mountains. You see, it was my father’s greatest
Normally I lament the winter’s early dying sun, but this year I find myself embracing it. I like the way the old amber streetlights come on, all at once, a shimmering chorus, after the sun dips into the ocean. I like, too, the multi-colored Christmas bulbs that come on more
From the top of my green flecked hill the setting sun is as yellow and fat as a fried egg yolk. The sky that surrounds it creamy as orange sherbet veined with a swirling raspberry ribbon of clouds. Terrible things can appear beautiful, given enough distance. People the world over
In December the sun goes down and the lights go up. Store entrances chime with little gold bells and the smell of pine and sugar cookies and cold, damp concrete transform me into the small girl I sometimes forget that I still am. That little girl loves this time of
I like desert places. Places where life is scrappy and small and leaves bare the raw geology of the earth. In southern Utah there is a place that has been molded by ancient seas, its sediments crushed to stone by time. An old place uplifted by tectonic forces and cut
November brings gray skies so thick even our brilliant sun can’t break them. She brings the first of the bare trees, frozen in waiting, for better times. She trails the spiced scent of woodsmoke, a warm relief, but also a reminder, of brother October’s hungry wildfires. In this way, she
The year I turned eight my parents split for good. It was a difficult time in its way. But it also had its own kind of magic. My mother decided to be the one to leave what was once the family home, opting instead to pack my brother and I
Generally, death comes to us first through the elderly. A grandparent, a distant relative, an older neighbor passes on and we learn what it truly is to lose someone. We learn what it means for someone we knew to never come back. That’s not how it worked for me. Perhaps
I spent the better part of my Sunday on the floor of my garage with blackened hands and a paring knife. Technically speaking, any invasive action to a plant’s root system should take place during a period of inactive growth. For aloes, this is apparently late winter or early spring,
I love Halloween. I love the cool evenings that grow strong with the early dying sun. I love the pumpkins and the loose leaf litter made crisp by falling humidity. I love the flirtation with magic. With true magic. Sometimes coming of age is described as the letting go of
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
Handcrafting a Life 