What Happens When You Burn Moby-Dick

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this but… we live in a world that increasingly and exhaustively thrives on false dichotomies and divisions. If you don’t like something it is automatically “bad.” Or if you happen to like something someone else doesn’t, you get chewed out. Everyone has to be right; everyone else is wrong. […]

Updates on Writing and Life

October is two-thirds gone! Time flies when you’re busy… and not stuck in the epic doldrums of the mid-Pandemic. I thought I’d give a few updates about what’s been happening with me this season. I am busier than I thought I would be, and busy in a good way. The Pandemic isn’t entirely over, but […]

I Can Actually Do This

I’ve had a realization lately. Not anything so profound as to shatter the Earth. But it has been a course correction to some of the beliefs and thought-patterns driving me: to run or not to run. Where It Started: The Dreaded “Mile” I’d always believed I was physically incapable of running. Therefore, it was pointless […]

The Solace of Butterflies in the Fall

In August and September 2017, painted lady butterflies invaded the Plains. They clung to flowers and bushes, drinking their nectar like new and strange autumn-time blossoms of orange, red, and black. The monarchs usually steal the glory, but the painted ladies (vanessa cardui) of 2017 took the spotlight. Plentiful and nourishing rains in California had […]

Creative Ideas Begin as Seeds

Nature has a metaphor that perfectly illustrates what it means to live creatively. Friends, I present to you the humble seed: offspring of flowers and pollen, a hard little mote that can survive millennia in a frozen tundra or a hot summer in the back garden, add specks of flavor and texture to your muffin […]