Colin and I met when we both lived in Kansas City. This June we will have lived away from Kansas City for 7 years. We left because we felt the call of life all its opportunities. We wanted to launch our life on a raft of experience we could build together. On Understanding Risk I…
Category: Midwest is Best
On Home and Horizons
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At least three times since I have been back to visit my parents, I have thought: “It’s nice to be home.” Then I remembered that I haven’t lived here since 20 years, half my life. Home comes when I feel my heart Drop its weight in relief At the sight of flat land running Forever…
My Favorite… Poem
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Want to torture me? Ask me who my favorite AUTHOR is. Or my favorite film. AAHHH! It’s really like asking the old woman who lived in the shoe which is her favorite child. I mean, can she even remember all of them? But I do have a poem that I love and come back to…
The Beginning of Gone
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Larry was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease, He’s at the beginning of the journey toward the end. Yeah, I mean, they’ve given him the magical pill, but there aren’t any guarantees. Well, just that one guarantee. Larry’s been making art that evolves from nature for a long time. He’s put the essentially impermanent into…
The Swimming Lesson
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Our town has a big indoor pool, circa 1943, that offers the world’s cheapest swimming lessons, for all ages. This is most excellent for us since we have 152 kids living at our house (Note: for those “interested parties,” who print out my blog for so-called legal reasons, please read the definition of hyperbole, as…
#reverb10, Day 29: Tearing Down Walls
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A combination of the day 29 prompt (Defining Moment: Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year) and my decision to finally read “Eat. Pray. Love” made me realize what my defining moment of the year was. My old friend, JD, came out to visit and to work…
No One is Looking: On Letting Go
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So I continue to take part in #Reverb10, a 31-day write-in. Here’s today’s post. Day 5 Prompt: Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why? (Thanks, Alice.) This year, I let go of Kevin. Kevin is the name of the man I really and truly fell in love with in…
Where Wisconsin Is…
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…And Other Existential Observations on Home My colleague (we both teach at university) said, quite innocently: “I guess I don’t think of Wisconsin as the Midwest.” This while I was rapping a heavy mix of Madison virtues and Midwest easiness. “Oh,” she said when I called up the map. “I guess I thought it was…
On Loving Things
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Thanks Tara! It’s Another We Scout Wednesday great topic. I have talked often here about how we should all de-stuff ourselves. Get rid of everything and just stop the consumption train. It’s no secret how I feel about that. I am the anti-packrat. At my house, if you leave your sh*t on the counter too…
On Being Midwestern: Nice
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While I’m traveling around Canada and New England, I’ve put together some thoughts on HOME. Here’s today’s installment, ON BEING MIDWESTERN, Part 1. Nice. In my scan for ideas, I stumbled across this Columbus, Ohio message board, where a fair number of Midwesterners in that area of the country give their thoughts on what happens…
Losing Late Nights
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It suddenly occurred to me — when I was in the basement waiting to see if the washer would flood/leak — that I am no longer a Night Writer. I used to stay up and journal, scribble, angst-ify long after the sun had gone and the house had gone quiet. In KC, I’d sit on…
Why is “Local” so Weird?
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My kids reallyreally like bananas and I am reallyreally glad about that. As some of you know, we are greeny-greensters, so we grow our own veggie garden, make compost, and buy organic and local. Well, sometimes. If we started to apply the “locally-grown” condition to our food (250-mile radius), what would be have to give…
On Finding a Voice
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I have a tendency to slip into foul language when little people are asleep. It’s the side effect of a past life working in the restaurant business where half the employees never escape a room below 110 degrees and only hear the words: “You screwed my order up again” as the nearest thing to praise.…
Dinner’s Ready!
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I had a revelation whilst reading a recipe suggestion from my friend Jeannie today. Midwestern recipes seem to always involve spraying a pan with Pam and sprinkling Durkee Fried Onions. We’ve been revamping our eating as you might guess to make things a bit more family friendly. Suggestions for dinners have been very “bake and…
Garrison Keillor’s Voice
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“You can’t imagine how much a dead man weighs.” – What the grandfather of Gabriel Garcia Marquez often told him. Quoted from “A Writer’s Almanac”, March 6, 2009. I’ve gotten quite taken with the sound of Garrison Keillor’s voice on my Honda Fit speakers. His Lake Wobegone days are too sentimental for me most of…
