Letter from Home appears weekly in Flagstaff Live! each Thursday, and is written by a rotating cast of Flagstaff-based writers, including Tony Norris, Shonto Begay, Jean Rukkila, Peter Friederici, Darcy Falk, Laura Kelly, Kate Watters, Margaret Erhart, Allison Gruber, Stacy Murison, and an occasional guest writer. Click the Read More button below any of these posts to read the full version and view any images that the authors have shared.
Waiting for Spring
I thought the last snowstorm we got might be the last. Actually, I felt like the last storm might be the last, but how I feel and what the weather does are two different things entirely. Maybe it is more accurate to say that I hoped the last storm would be the last, that we were on the road to spring, that I could finally get on with moving forward and starting to build again. I’m tired of storms—the literal ones and the metaphorical ones, and I guess a big part of me is waiting for things in the world to change so that I can stop fighting so...
read moreAdrift in the Floating City; A traveler considers home
Ever since reading Alfred Kazin’s A Walker in the City, I’ve approached the art of the passeggiata with a new sense of awe. Far from being a simple feat of forward movement, a stroll is an act of discovery, a gourmet meal of the senses. We prowl and sniff and stop and listen and sniff again, just like the four-footers we know. Sometimes we’re purposeful, ticking off the miles from one place to another. Sometimes we’re dreamy, stopping at the pasticceria for a sfogliatella, or pausing under an open window on a narrow street to eavesdrop on the...
read moreI Can See Clearly Now
Although Buffalo Park was a slip and slide mud festival after last week’s snowfall, I walked a mid-day lap on Sunday. People who had driven up the hill to see the snow clustered around the entry to the park, squealing as they made snowballs and snapped photos. I sloshed alone through the melting snow patches on the Nate Avery trail. About a half hour in, I heard the steady cadence of a runner behind me. He trotted by, buffed and sturdy and splattered with mud. He looked like the human equivalent of a rugged offroad sports utility vehicle in a...
read moreLife of Piles
Every morning when I get dressed, I walk to my dresser, take two steps to the left, and dig through baskets, bins, and piles of laundry to find the clothes I will wear for the day. Some of it is clean, gathered into a basket to be banished to the corner of the bedroom for a few cycles of laundry until I finally get a wild spurt of motivation and put stuff away. Some of it is mostly clean, worn but not dirtied enough to justify devoting resources to its laundering. Some of it is not clean. Sometimes the piles mix together and everything gets...
read moreDead Things
My husband, Marc, and I made it out to Lake Mary this weekend. First, a disclaimer: I grew up in upstate New York, about two miles from Lake Ontario. So, I am a “lake snob” for sure. But since visiting the upper falls of Lake Mary last spring during the snow melt, I’ve come to appreciate the charms of a small-ish lake surrounded by forest, hills and quaint picnic areas. This day brought us out to the Osprey Lookout where a recent eagle watch was canceled due to our recent snowstorms. We couldn’t help but think we might see eagles and osprey...
read moreSing With Me
The year after I graduated from high school, I crisscrossed the U.S. in a flotilla of Greyhound buses with about 150 people my age. We were one of three traveling casts of Up With People, a wholesome performance troupe singing across small town America and spreading a message of global goodwill. I wasn’t selected because of my superior pipes or formal training; I was chosen because I could hold a tune and I played well with others. I had sung in my grade school chorus, sung in Sunday church, sung to vinyl my friends and I would spin at...
read morePuzzled: A Confession
Based on my recent and careful study of the social media zeitgeist, I have come to understand that public confession is the best and most efficacious way to combat private demons. Yet I am ill-equipped to do so there, as my personal engagement with social media tends to be pretty half-assed; I am a dabbler rather than a deep diver. So I have to find some other forum for the baring of my soul (plus, they pay me here). For today, my soul is preoccupied by a problem that might at first glance not seem too closely tied to demonic possession. It’s...
read moreThe Secret Lives of Barn Cats
As I walk down my snow covered driveway to retrieve a package left by our gate, I am met by the dotted lines of cat tracks. One meets my path near our garage door, beelines east toward the fence, then abruptly changes direction when it becomes apparent this route will collide with a patch of weeds. The path reminds me of an animated transcription of a bouncing ball. Back and forth this dotted line weaves across the driveway’s deeply inscribed tire tracks all the way to the gate. As I watch these phantom footsteps dance across the driveway, I...
read moreFirst Snows
It is hard to conjure up memories of childhood snows without a sneaking suspicion that they have been colored by the relentless mass-media momentum of the original Frosty the Snowman animated TV special, with its insistence on the sanctified magic of the winter’s first snowfall. But I know there are old family photos with that same vibe, images of cute blond sprites, including me, bundled up in our winter coats and snowpants, pommeled hats and clumsy mittens, out for a walk with our parents like dutiful penguin chicks, or else gathered around...
read moreThe Trials of Now
When I was a kid and admittedly a little on the self-centered side, I thought I would someday write an advice column for my hometown newspaper, the New York Times. I decided I would call it Dear Me, ME being my initials. The cleverness of that faded over time, as did the ambition to give anyone anywhere advice. But now I’m back at it, though you won’t find pearls of wisdom here, only a few pebbles I’ve carried in my pocket over the years. Some of them came home with me from the river, others I picked up off the road, and yet others were good...
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