The forsythia outside my window has given up the brilliant citrus yellow and is fading back to the sticky green leaves. I am trying to hold a dull panic at bay. My aim is to steady myself, my nerves. I do not want to doom scroll exhaustively, rants and laments of our country’s frightening descent into chaos. Look out your window, I tell myself. Write about the forsythia’s brave first burst that ushers in the redbuds’ purple halo. See the lime green of spring grass and tiny leaves. In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers’ Karamazov, Ivan, the … Continue reading Ars Poetica by Trudy Hale→
She said she knew that it was Father’s Day in the U.S. and she began to tell me a story from the back seat as we bounced down rough dirt roads on the way to the church. I twisted in the passenger seat to watch her face even though the streets of Bujumbura were a captivating sight. Three-wheeled tuk-tuks competed with overladen bicycles and military trucks for space between deep ditches. A man walked along the side of the road with a stack of foam mattresses on his head, seven high. Another navigated his bike … Continue reading Father’s Day in Bujumbura by Alex Joyner→
Tuesday, Januay 7th. My son Charlie called. He was breathless. He had barely escaped the Palisades. The sky had been clear, he said when he took the actor John Goodman’s retriever, Miss Daisy, to the vet. But when he returned a couple of hours later, black clouds of smoke and flames blotted out the sun. A hurricane strength wind had ignited the brush in Temescal Canyon north of Sunset Boulevard. The fire now engulfed the Palisades, a neighborhood on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway. Sirens wailed, police and fire engines raced up Sunset. … Continue reading Wild Fires by Trudy Hale→
When have you been convinced to change your mind? How did it happen? By negotiation? By beauty? By lament? By shock or threat? By what? The question and poem prompt by the Irish poet Padraig O Tuama from Poetry Unbound intrigued me. But nothing came to mind. Certainly not any dramatic on-the-road-to-Damascus, ‘see the light,’ kind of thinking. Until last night. But first let me set the stage. Nov. 6 I was in Memphis with my daughter to attend my godson’s wedding and visit old friends. Outside the Peabody Hotel the sky was overcast, low … Continue reading On the Edge by Trudy Hale→
“Your new life is gonna cost you your old one.” —Margot Berman I forget if it was around the time of a full moon or another supercharged energy portal that I tend to lose track of, but just when I had made the decision to try out this nomadic lifestyle, an intuitive friend posted that message online. It felt kinda ominous. But also reassuring that as giant of a leap as this was, it was also arriving at a fitting time. Sure, I thought, it’ll cost me familiarities and conveniences of DC life. Creature comforts … Continue reading The (Very Uncomfortable) Art of Letting Go: When Movers Lose All Your Furniture by Katie Wilkes→
I am in an abusive relationship again. This morning was the first time it occurred to me to label it as such. Not a lover or husband, or friend, but the memoir. My own. A book I have been writing—too embarrassed to confess for how many years. And like one of these kinds of relationships, it’s been on again off again. I have finished a tweaked and polished draft, some of it quite good but there seems to be a problem. So, the other day I’m sitting in C’ville Coffee with Susan, Mitzi, and Nancy. … Continue reading Once Upon A Memoir by Trudy Hale→
When the leg appeared out of the darkness, flung over the gate of the neighboring corral, I was howling along with Emmylou Harris. “Beneath Still Waters” was booming from the CD player in the old door-less refrigerator in Jackie’s garden, where I was sitting with Jackie until just minutes before when she went off in search of a horse I had seen passing along the dirt road like a phantom. Jackie swore I was seeing things. “You come out to Archer City, Texas and you think there’s nothing around here but horses.” But she set … Continue reading A Leg in the Darkness by Alex Joyner→
Everything is connected. Most of what the universe energy is, creation/destruction energy, we don’t understand. We underestimate the intelligence of other living things—other animals, plants, fungi, bacteria—perhaps we underestimate what is actually alive—and sentient—this planet, the creative energy that created this solar system and everything beyond. What is the purpose of spiritual feelings—feelings of oneness with all life on the planet, with the universe, feeling of a connection to the universe? What is the purpose of what living things—plants, animals, human animals, and perhaps fungi and bacteria—discover when exposed to psychedelic chemicals in mushrooms and … Continue reading Thoughts About the Universe These Mornings by Laura Marello→
4:30 a.m. A barely audible humming wakes me from a deep sleep. It’s a faint yet unfamiliar sound. I am used to the quiet, to the ordinary sounds, so this new sound disturbs me. I am trying not to be worried, but I am and lie wide awake, listening. Yes, now I’m sure it’s not a sound I’ve heard before. My house is old, an 1854 farm house and wood may swell or shrink, a floorboard creak, a piece of furniture, a door. I know these sounds. The daytime sounds are recognizable—a tractor ploughing feed-corn … Continue reading A Winter’s Tale by Trudy Hale→
