It was truly one of the glimmering little highlights of my summer to spend some time with Partnership for Appalachian Girls’ Education (PAGE Programs) and Asheville Artist Jenny Pickens to capture the vital work they’re doing with Madison County girls for the Hot Springs Tourism & Welcome Center. You can read the full article here….

It’s so quiet without you here, without the gentle click of your feet. I keep waiting for you to come around the corner, smiling with those tiny lower teeth, nuzzling into my calves for a sleepy morning hug. I keep walking past the places where your bed laid, seeing the golden curl of your body…

If you were to ask I’d proudly tell you that I am a tender of the quiet in the morning and the gentle lifting of light through the trees. I’d tell you I’m a noticer of subtle shifts between your breath and mine…

I have been given a vine. It’s long and unwieldy. I study its length, look around at the overwhelming mass from which it stems. I see others with their ends and middles and off-shoots. I begin to weave forward and over as best I can with the thickness of this root. Others around me do…

We trudged through the snow as if it were a morning chore at first.On our long list of honey-dos.Bearing the weight of a brisk February wind on our faces.Whipping them into strawberry moon pies.Tiny foot pockets of deer feet and onion sprigs announcing themselves as we walked through.The valley holding us real careful,walking warm broth…

Winter books are full. See you in the spring. The country calls and fills the calendar of things, rest and ramblin. My vehicle is a horse, rared and valiant. My phone a rotary with no time stamp or feeds. My lover made me salmon soup, which may take weeks to slow slurp as I please….

This piece was written for the Hot Springs N.C. Tourism Association in the summer of 2020 and can be found on their website here: “Where the Appalachian Trail Leads…” On a warm October afternoon, I walk up to the side porch of Hot Spring’s oldest and most well-known home, The Sunnybank Inn. Having been closed…

Don’t let the daylight come, with its demands and schedules to keep. I’m just fine here diligently plodding along by candlelight. Barefoot and outstretched, enough space in my chest to go on and set me off to soar gently above that pond, croak my cares in a guttural night song to that bullfrog in there…

Dearly Beloved, I cannot meet you on this day, this one glorious day I’ve been granted to unfold as I please. This one day not stacked sun up to sun down with meetings and phone calls and more messages than one can possibly respond, unless they chose to submit human form more fully to technology….

Somewhere off in the hedgerow a bird whistles in a long slow whooo. Like some kind of morning owl or loon. Its song hangs effortlessly in the cool September morning with me like an old friend. My mind quiets to fully listen. To the loon owl’s morning yarn. To the leaves skittering at my feet….