The Writing Life

Eighteen years ago I listened to the poet Marvin Bell improvise verse over the top of live cello music, in the grand ballroom of a hotel in gray, sopping Seaside, Oregon. It was my first winter [...]

I hope if you are reading this you have great summer reads picked out, an ecologically diverse window view (or plans to visit such a place!), and some kind of secret that you are carrying into [...]

Well, a black-bear cub opened the back passenger door of my car this month and climbed in. From the paw prints and black hairs on the headliner, I can tell it also climbed up front and even [...]

The forest is coming to life again, even against the backdrop of Helene’s damage, and I need to tell you what that means for those of us still here. Why? Because our climate disaster is yours, [...]

Over the past month, despite much of the surrounding national forest still being closed, we’ve braved some of the hiking trails. Hiking has felt very healing, if not also tender. Just a hundred [...]

We continue to feel very protective of our family time, in our post-Helene, reunited lives. Volunteering happens weekly, at relief centers or river and creek cleanups. Below, you’ll see my son [...]

My family has been reunited – under the same roof – for six weeks. Every day, dump trucks come and go along Highway 80 and our side road, Lower Browns Creek Road, removing piles of ruined items [...]

We are so much more than the headlines and heretics that make the news. If the past few months have taught me anything, it’s exactly that. If you’re grasping for good news, validation, a [...]

It’s hard to know where to start an update when my community is still knee-deep in mud, death, and destruction. But right alongside that, many of us are also heart-deep in compassion, [...]

I am writing to you from a place of astonishment and gratitude. This summer, I experienced major physical and physiological wins in my recovery from long covid. Only nine months ago, I ate my [...]