I’m losing track of how many winters I’ve spent working on this novel. I think 2017 marked the fourth. And while that manuscript sits on my computer awaiting my attention, an outline for a new book is growing like a fungus on my desk, taking shape regardless of the lack of time and sunlight I’m […]
Chronic Hope
It’s 4 am, and I’m alone with a field of crickets outside my window screens, two dogs, one pressure canner, and 35 quarts of tomato sauce. It’s the week before Labor Day. Since 2011, I have a thing about canning tomatoes before Labor Day. It seems like we’re all learning special names that make our […]
August
I remember when August was defined by crickets pulsing through the day and night; by goldenrods stretching tall to meet the deep blue sky; by the blackberries that lured me off the roadsides, slicing my legs and arms as payment for their plump fruit. I remember how August was the calm before the storm of […]
The Butterfly
“There was one boy who I’m pretty sure had a crush on me. Because he burbed in my face. Then, a little while later, he walked up next me, farted, and then accused me of doing it. Can someone explain to me how that expresses affection?” Saoirse is having an extraordinary summer. To thank her […]
How to prepare a hot dog
“Can we play Percy Jackson?” Ula’s voice rises up, tentative, from the back of the car. Saoirse’s best friend Ania is back east from California. Saoirse and Ania turn 14 this month, and I have them here with me for only a few short days, as they are headed out on a back packing trip […]
This facility serves nuts.
“Food brings people together. It’s just amazing…” The cafe is closed, nearly empty of customers, and I’ve made my way over to table one, where two retired English teachers from my high school are lingering over their coffee and pie. They are here this afternoon, reaching out to each other, reaching out to the world […]
Love & Duty
“May I do my work out of love, and not out of duty.” I say this every day as part of my morning prayer. I added it in a few years back, when homeschooling Saoirse and Ula was at its most challenging. Like every over-achieving mom, I was having a hard time sorting out what […]
Culture Shock
Is this character, or is this cultural? I’ve just returned home from the cafe for lunch to find two Spanish teenagers melted across my living room couch, faces illuminated by smartphones. My own teenager has retreated to help her dad stack the firewood. I don’t think they notice she’s left them. They don’t even notice […]
Adventures in Shopping
“We’re at a store called Pink. Did you know you can try on thongs over your shorts?” This is a week of many firsts: Saoirse’s first “hang out” at the mall with Martina, our foreign exchange student from Madrid; her first siting of a Wendy’s restaurant; her first exposure to the makeup aisle at Wal-Mart, […]
Truth & Dreams
My graduate school advisors would not clear me to begin my research on Schoharie County agriculture before I could proficiently discuss the nature of truth. Was I a positivist, one who believes that truth can be known, most often through quantification, and therefore predicted and controlled? Or was I more of a naturalist, who believed […]
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