I love the way he plays with fire and light. With water and mirrors and stars. Maybe because I’ve always loved those things, too? England’s Lake District. When I was still a Nikon girl, and would walk for hours to lay on my stomach with my lens. Where things still wear their old Norse names
He said, “You reckon that’s what Heaven looks like?” I said, “It ought to, I climbed high enough.” Then he stuck a fireball in his mouth and turned back to the TV and said “Watch this right here.” And that son of Katie Elder put dynamite under a bridge and it went BOOM, and so
To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love. Thich Nhat Hanh said that. Or something like it. I sat on the river bank this morning. Before the fog had a chance to lift into the sky. Wondering how many people I’ve wounded. Because I didn’t love them right. Because I didn’t
I love the mornings. If the day’s my own, it’s when I feel my happiest. This morning I wanted to watch the sun rise across the lake. Instead, I found a field out in the middle of nothing by a road that dead-ended into the water. I got out of my car and stood and
Pa always grew the most amazing gardens. At an 80 degree angle. No low land in sight. Nowadays he has one small patch. Flat. He grows squash. And lettuce. And he sits in a chair to pick his beans. This chair. Sometimes his body gives out on him. He can’t stand. Or even sit. So
I don’t get nostalgic. I’m not a proud mountaineer. I don’t wear the gold and the blue. I don’t sing “Coal Miner’s Daughter” like I used to. “Oh I’m proud to be a coal miner’s daughter. I remember well, the well where I drew water. Nothing’s left, but the floors, Nothing lives here, anymore. ‘Cept
Bridge Day is an annual one-day festival in Fayetteville, West Virginia. All four lanes of the bridge are closed to automobiles and opened to pedestrians. Estimates have 100,000 people attending the overall event. It’s the only day of the year people are allowed to BASE jump off the bridge into the New River Gorge 876
Last Fall I spent a lot of time in an old fishing boat that had been left on the bank. It became a sort of security blanket, when life became overwhelming. Sometimes I’d just sit in it and let squirrels throw nuts down at me. Other times, I’d push it out onto the lake, and
“When I became a man I put away childish things. Including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” ? C.S. Lewis Last weekend I went looking for a tractor. I found a bale of hay, instead. I don’t remember what compelled me to want to climb on the thing. I
He said it was mysterious. The way I showed up, every evening. Silent and barefoot. With my shoes in my hand. I said she called life a luminous halo. Then she walked into the water. And never walked back out again.
I spent three hours here, yesterday. On this stoop and on this porch. I humped up and wouldn’t budge when everyone else went to feed the donkey. Even though they knew good and well they weren’t supposed to feed that donkey. And I thought about my great-aunt Georgie, and Pa and Ma. And how they
I started cussing when Ma died. Hard core mouthfuls. Obscenities I never knew I knew. It was the only thing that made me feel better. It was the only thing that made me feel good. And I liked it. That’d be hard for Ma to handle, if she knew. I don’t have to imagine what
