What are you looking forward to? I've had a hard time thinking of a topic that isn't gloomy, but I don't want to focus on gloom today. The Christmas lights are on. This year our tree is made of books, which are themselves made out of trees, so we're not far from tradition. Putting a …
I found myself sitting in the darkness of an abandoned church looking up at the moon alongside a best friend. The last month of the year has spilled out before us. We are tired but glad to be together in the magic quiet of a place we aren't supposed to be. When you look back …
Things are changing in our house. (Though life is change, so when are things not changing?) I'll be starting my second job (losing time I've spent writing and making things) and our teen has started college. Then there are the outside forces, the Delta variant and the changes to our climate and whatever-in-the-all-the-levels-of-hell our rage-filled, …
Home To be honest, I don't think my dad has any connection to the summer solstice. He isn't one to take note of such days. He's a quiet Catholic. He never talks about his beliefs and hasn't been to mass in 40 years. About ten years ago, I saw that he'd sent a check to …
There was a large spider on the floor-length curtains. Large is relative, of course. I'd say it was about the size of the palm of your hand. I've told this story before, but this is in case you missed it. And the point this time is different. I was probably five or six. Before this …
A home that caught my eye in Salem. Definitely not the house I grew up in. In grad school, I had a final exam with a one word question. We had to write about this one word. (For the life of me, I can't remember how much time were were given, but it was at …
I love the lake. The lake doesn't love me. Dad bought his house on the lake before I was born. The lake lives in my earliest memories. In childhood, dad would make me volcanoes in the beach sand. We had our best conversations on the dock. As a teen, I sat on the dock to …
I was planning to write about the winter storm here in Texas, the surprise of being without electricity or heat from 2am Monday to 1am thereabouts Thursday. We didn't lose water, thank goodness, but plenty of my friends and students did. Some people are still without water. Aside from the love, dogs provide heat! We …
The Civil War brought us death on a massive scale, and I've read how people turned to seances. First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln held seances too. The Spiritualist movement was already in place by the time of the war, but certainly so much violent death spurred more people to try so-called spirit circles. (Aaron Mahnke's …
Continue reading There’s a Gaping Hole in the Livingroom Wall
I took this picture while out for a walk last March. This character sits in front of a house just a few blocks away. I like walking around our neighborhood and taking pictures of things people put in their yards (though I only take pictures that don't require pointing the camera directly at someone's home). …
Marta Pelrine-Bacon 