Fall Elements Originally uploaded by One-Speed Photography I didn’t want to come out today. I knew I was not going to find a truly quiet place, and I have so many works in progress that I really begrudged the time. At the very least I ought to be folding clothes so that’s not hanging over…
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At Dawn
Orion Originally uploaded by Stigs I slept poorly last night, haunted perhaps by the images on the movie screen, or more likely a prisoner of my own adrenalin. The children moaned in their sleep, and I woke. My husband, ensconced downstairs on the couch with a cold, coughed, and I woke. A…
Read MoreStarstruck
When I was growing up, my bedroom faced north, toward the pond and the gentle swell of a hayfield. And the chicken yard, which meant that any time a raccoon got into the henhouse, I was the one who raised the alert. No wonder I’m such a light sleeper. I don’t know at what point…
Read MoreSeeking Stillness
At quarter of nine in the morning, the mercury stands at 83 degrees. Already I have mowed the lawn, written a blog, revised a writing assignment, and cleaned up half a gallon of forest green paint from the office floor. The sitter arrives, and it is time for me to go in search of stillness.…
Read MoreBy Flowing Waters
There’s just something about running water. It’s one of the most familiar images the world—a symbol of bounty and peace. It’s Biblical, yes, but it’s also ingrained in human nature—this sense of being bound to the streams for our very lives. Whenever you turn on one of those programs of calming music, it’s inevitably paired…
Read MoreNature Boy
…and he loves to be down in the woods, exploring the creek bank and throwing rocks. He doesn’t understand the frightening implications of BP’s Gulf fiasco. And I don’t think I would want him to, frankly. Not at the age of five. Imagine the anxiety a small child would feel, carrying a weight that heavy.…
Read MoreMiraculous
It is spring, and I return to the woods. To the stillness of nature and the silence of my heart. To the quiet of a creek, placid in the wake of the weekend’s storms, but nonetheless bearing the marks of the power contained in them. I sit on a fallen tree above the…
Read MoreBicycle Day
It’s a sad fact of life that it’s easier to set goals for yourself and your family than it is to live them. Case in point: Christian and I want our family to be a family that enjoys being physically active. That doesn’t mean we want the kids involved in every sport imaginable. It means that…
Read MoreAwakening
I live inside a filter. The first touch of my baby’s cheek against my lips makes my heart catch. The first taste of birthday cake after five weeks without sweets is like a slice of Heaven. But within seconds, my brain filters it out, in search of the next new stimulus. Is this simply the…
Read MoreSprung
On Wednesday, spring arrived. I heard it in the darkness before dawn, when the tree frogs began croaking in chorus, and two different bird species took up an obbligato—too impatient to wait for the sunrise. I felt it in the change of the air I breathed in, warmer, wetter, charged with energy prepared to burst.…
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Kathleen M. Basi 