I moved into my new office in the middle of a monsoon downpour on a Friday afternoon. It feels auspicious when something begins in the middle of a weather adventure. Monsoon rains, moving up and down four flights of stairs, dodging a heavy and steady rainfall running under eaves and awnings as best as I could, trying to keep dry. Then, moving furniture,...
Read More
Smoky Sunset Photo by Stacy Murison Even though our county government tells me that I should always be prepared for summer forest fires, I never really am. I have a better bug-out-bag for the oft-imagined zombie apocalypse or potential nuclear fallout (I am a child of the 1980s, after all) than I do for the realistic evacuation orders for fires. As the...
Read More
I think I’m late to the garden this year, although I’m not sure—I seem to have kept notes of everything last year except plantings. What I remember is that by the time I went to buy tomato starters last May, they were mostly gone. The person at one garden store shook her head sadly while telling me I was about two weeks too late. Because there was still...
Read More
An ex-boyfriend once told me that every day is an anniversary of something. I suppose that’s true, especially as I scan social media “memories” from one year ago. I was especially active that first month of the pandemic: sourdough starter photos, music playlists for students as we all scrambled to finish the school year online, and photos of a bluebird at...
Read More
On a recent Saturday night, I found myself sitting on the floor reading notes from a graduate class in philosophy taught by Bud Ruf (pronounced “roof”). Even in my 30s, I could not bring myself to call him “Bud,” but always “professor” or “doctor,” to his annoyance. “Call me Bud,” he would say, and I would reply, “OK…Doctor Ruf.” I understand his...
Read More