Travel Light
Baggage keeps us in the past and blocks the road to the future. You can’t live in the past. Shut the door behind you. Travel light. Take with you only those things you have learned from the mistakes you have made.
Ladies Don't
The Case Against Docking and Declawing
Some practices that we once considered standard and traditional we now see as intrusive and hurtful. In the United States, both the tail-docking of dogs and the declawing of cats are two practices that are still all too common.
The Half-Tailed Squirrel
Julia awoke to a golden morning, the kind of day when the sun beamed through the open east window making everything in the room sparkle, especially the rose zircon earrings waiting on her bureau.
Outside she heard the cacophony of the half-tail squirrel who lived in the live oak at the side of the driveway. This morning he was loudly arguing with a raucous murder of crows. Murder, might be the usual descriptive word for a flock like this, but actually these were a band of pirates. The squirrel was an easy mark for them. He had a penchant for contraband and the band of crows frequently pillaged his treasures.
Reflection on the Larceny of Squirrels
The other day, I watched one neighboring squirrel raid the nest of the homesteader in our front yard tree. A few days later, the homesteader buried another cache of nuts on our boulevard. As soon as he left, the neighbor came over, searched, pillaged and re-buried our homesteader's bounty. No wonder the homesteader can't find his stockpile!
Last Words
Purple-blue night into
Blue-white day,
On the glacier,
There he lay...
Saving Blooper
The day was hot. August hot. The kind of hot when watery mirages shimmered in the road ahead. The kind of hot when the weight of the Chevy pushed new furrows into the worn asphalt that covered the country road.
When Baby Cries
Babies cry for all sorts of reasons. Hunger. Thirst. Discomfort. Sometimes just to exercise their lungs. When we brought my first-born home, he cried almost constantly.
Favorite Child
My young son asked, “Momma, who do you love more? Me or Nicki?” I had to think. I knew the stock answer was, “I love you both the same,” but I didn’t. I loved some qualities about him that she didn’t have and she had some lovable qualities that I didn’t see in him.
Memories of August
Creeks and wooded walkways had all been explored.Forts were built and dismantled; some were rebuilt and some were abandoned. The days were hot, too hot for outdoor play, and so after supper we all went out into the dusk to reconnect our friendships with backyard (and front-yard) games.