A sedan pulled into our driveway just I was about to get into my car. I approached to see what they wanted, and the passenger window rolled down to reveal an elderly woman wearing an enormous grin and waving me over excitedly. She spoke with a thick accent even after decades of living in the … Continue reading The Gardener
The pictures on our walls are crooked. November was a tidal wave that crashed through our lives, its slow pull outward at the beginning ending in a rapid surge that moved everything in its path in December. Now it's January, and we are grateful to be alive and together, sorting through the silt and deciding … Continue reading Straightening Pictures
By white middle-American standards, I don't live in a "safe" neighborhood. There are at least two houses dealing drugs, prostitutes on the corner, gang tags on my fence. I pick up needles and condoms out of my flowerbeds. My car has been broken into so often I no longer lock it in hopes they will … Continue reading Strawberries and a Hose
Thirty-plus years ago (YIKES!) my parents did something that changed the course of my life: they took me whitewater rafting. I grew up outdoors. My first hike up Mount Pilchuck was when I was too young to have, much less tie, my own hiking boots. I still remember the mildewy canvas smell of our army-green … Continue reading Rogue Revelation
