I’ve always loved history and in recent years have taken a specific interest in what daily life looked like historically. What did people eat? What were their dishes and utensils made out of? What did they wear on a regular workday, and what about what they would wear to church on Sunday? What did their…
One of my earliest memories of seeing a movie in theaters is The Hunchback of Notre Dame—generally not considered one of Disney’s better animated films. I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently, though, and after seeing this video from Lindsay Ellis on YouTube, I wanted to write about why I think this movie is…
flowers always flowers mock love mock grief make a mockery of healing as roses bite in treachery and chrysanthemums wither like our cherished ones and flowers always flowers left behind on the garden bench with the way things were before. *inspired by Camille on a Garden Bench by Claude Monet; image from Wikimedia Commons.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that moving is terrible. Recently(ish), I made it through a big move which, as such things are wont to do, turned out to be very enlightening. The biggest lesson? Turns out, I have a lot of books. I obviously already knew I had a lot of books. But there’s…
One of the strangest things to come from this quarantine (so far) is a small but very surreal change in the way that I think about “the outside world.” Before, it just was. It was ordinary, it was omnipresent, and it was familiar. Now, whenever I look out my window, everything feels so foreign somehow.…
Today, I read an essay by Brian Doyle that appears in his book One Long River of Song. It is about humility, which he compares to the “Final Frontier.” There were a few sections that stood out to me and felt particularly timely. It was one of those times where I was grateful that I…
There is so much I will always remember long after COVID-19 has become a finished chapter of our history. I will remember the feeling of the world being turned upside down in 48 hours, knowing it was shifting under my feet and wondering if I would still be standing when it was over. I will…
I have not been reading as much as usual lately and I thought that maybe writing about some of the books I’m excited to read might inspire me to pick one of them up and do some reading this weekend. Without further ado, here are some books, in no particular order, that I am particularly…
Not worst, Not best, either. We chose words that are not real. Or real, but better. Not better but clear. “The worst” is easier than saying “It is.” “No” is easier than saying “In this case it might…” There is no reason that the future or today should be so full of absolutes. We make…
During all the craziness of the last few weeks, one thing I have found myself saying a lot, and hearing from others is, “We’ll just have to do the best we can” (or some such variation of that idea). What’s interesting to me about that is that it is an explicit admission that while circumstances…
When I was brainstorming blog post ideas a month ago, one of the ideas was to write about getting to know a new place, and talking about the places I love to go to write. And then the world shut down only a few weeks after I moved into my new apartment, so I barely…
I never watched The Office when it was originally on television. I remember hearing about it, vaguely, but it never really sparked my interest – even after seeing it pop up on Netflix. In the last few months, though, I finally gave it a shot. My brother recommended it, so I figured it was finally time.…
One of my favorite creative writing exercises – not even just an exercise, but a process that can lead to a finished piece – is to chose five sentences at random from five books that I pick from my bookshelves. I then take those five sentences and make a poem from them. Some of the…
I was introduced to Jane Austen in school when we read Pride and Prejudice. It’s only been within the last few years that I finally read all of her finished novels. (Her novela, Lady Susan is still waiting for me – although I love the film adaptation called Love & Friendship from several years ago…