When my first husband and our two young children moved from Texas to Virginia to homestead nearly 20 years ago, we drove through Riner, the next town over from Floyd, took one deep whiff of the cow manure that was wafting down the road, rolled up our car windows and began to question our plans. […]
AKA: Not all that glitters is gold ~ JRR Tolkein Having 4 legs to balance her, our dog, Jazzy, didn’t have to slide her way down to the mailbox like I did. What we have here is a white Christmas with a little extra sparkle. There is no snow to shovel. Only ice and frozen […]
AKA: 13 Things about My Father… 1. My father was a cross between Santa Claus and Jackie Gleason. 2. The last time I saw him, he was in the hospital after a car accident. I told my mom and sister to go for lunch and that I would meet up with them later because I […]
Death is like an arrow that is already in flight, and your life lasts only until it reaches you. ~ George Hermes Is every grieving the death of a loved one different? Or are we different each time a loss visits us? When my brothers, Jim and Dan, died 4 years ago, I felt like […]
How does a part of the world leave the world? How does wetness leave water? ~ Rumi I’m reading Joan Didion’s book, “The Year of Magical Thinking,” which is about the sudden death of her husband while their only child was hospitalized and gravely ill. When my brothers, Jim and Dan, died four years […]
AKA: Things overheard while playing Scrabble… Is topsy a word without turvey? Is hob a word without nob? Can the word oodles be singular? Is pest an alternative plural for pet when you have too many of them? Coyote is coy. His name tells us so. I know listen and silent are the same word […]
My friend Mara and I have a lot in common. We both experienced a traumatic loss of a loved one 4 years ago (and in my case 2 losses), we’re both writers, we’re both from Floyd and have lived alter-native lifestyles,* we both worked at “Seeds of Light” bead shop for many years, we used […]
Lunchtime at the Café Del Sol… Bruce to Mara: What are you doing?! Mara: It’s the Scrabble box, Bruce. See if you can balance it on your head. Bruce: You guys have way too much time on your hands. Mara: What?! I’m a full-time student and single parent. Bruce: Well, too much imagination then. Colleen: […]
1. Because of a comment I left on a blogger site while playing Michele Agnew’s Weekend Meet & Greet, a graduate student taking a class on blogging at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, found Loose Leaf. He brought it to the attention of his classmates and teacher, and my blog ended being part of their […]
May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand. ~ Old Irish Blessing My brother John, the […]
Dreams are real as long as they last. Can we say anymore about life? ~ Henry Havelock Ellis If, as Carl Jung proposed, the psyche has a foreshadowing of death before it comes, how do the physical circumstances of death line-up with it? And if the psyche does indeed experience a foreshadowing of death through […]
He was, in his own words, “an operator,” which I understood as a reference to his street smarts. And he had the lingo to prove it. For my dad a beautiful woman was always “a hot tomato,” people who didn’t know what they were talking about were “blowing smoke,” “hatchi katchi” meant “fooling around,” and […]
