Category: Literature

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Let Them!

First, I checked the library, and there were dozens on the waiting list for the ebook and the audiobook. It would be months before it would be available.

Then, I checked my local bookstore in my small town. They were all sold out.

I kicked myself. I’d had my hand on a copy in a mega bookstore two weeks ago and had put it back, thinking I’d wait and either check it out to read it for free or support my small town bookstore instead of purchasing it right then and there. as I’d really wanted to do – to dive into it and lose myself in the words and the affirmations and head-nodding I knew would happen in those chapters. Lessons I needed and lessons I already knew.

Then came the first phone call. My husband’s brother’s wife, whom I still call my own sister-in-law and who’d read the book after she’d written her own on a similar topic just months before, had good things to say.

Then the second phone call. My brother’s wife, too, was in the thick of chapter 4 and couldn’t put it down.

I hung up and ordered a copy, which arrived on Saturday morning. By Saturday afternoon, I was halfway finished – and my husband had been as interested as I was once it arrived, so I used an Audible credit to download it so he could listen as I read (note: the Audible version, read by the author, doesn’t follow the book exactly – – it’s like an engaging conversation, and it pulled us both right in).

And here we are, all the better, with a new mindset.

I’ll let them do it.

I won’t try to persuade them.

I’ll mind my business.

I’ll stay in my lane.

I’ll flash my own turn signals.

I’ll drive my own car.

I’ll map my own route.

I’ll schedule my own detours.

I like scenic routes.

I’m out of the fray.

I’m not making their choices.

They’ll have to do that.

.

.

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The Silver Lining


during the coming reign, a friend says

she’ll turn off all news and stay in

and read more books than ever

and snuggle with her dogs

and I understand ~

I think she’s found

the silver

lining

here

**I’ll be reading with my book club (we met tonight at our local coffee shop on the town square to discuss The Beautiful and the Wild by Peggy Townsend) and sharing Goodreads reviews with my one of my daughters as we continue in the tradition of reading ever since she was little. Somewhere in all the buzz happening around us, there is a portal to another world in the pages of great books.

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The Serviceberry and the Question: Did I Bees Good?

Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Pexels.com

As I continue along the journey of my One Little Word for 2025, enough, I’ve been thinking lately about the stewardship of how I over-own things – do I selfishly trap them and call it collecting, or have I done my part by passing them along when they have lived their best life with me?

I think we all have a tendency to hoard things – to save a penny for a rainy day. But what happens when the collections have taken over our lives and the proverbial pennies are now quarters and dollars, anchoring us instead of freeing us? In 2023, I looked at all the boxes in the loft of our barn and in our attic and stepped back, taking it all in. I hung my head in shame at what I saw. It was like a graveyard of opportunity for still-useful items never seeing the light of day anymore, and I was the undertaker. I was the bad guy in the parable of the talents, burying the promise and potential of what had been entrusted to me. No, I have not been a good steward when it comes to things.

Once upon a time, I heard a saying shared by my father in a sermon. He reminded us all not to be those people who get all we can, can all we get, and sit on our can. At the end of 2023, I realized I’d been sitting on my can. And I needed to take action.

My grandparents grew up during The Great Depression, and learned about their stories when we would go visit them as my brother and I were growing up. My paternal grandparents lived in Waycross, Georgia, and they were the absolute King and Queen of double coupons. I learned a lot about frugality from them – about saving, about the concept of “enough,” and also about the disadvantages of too much. My grandmother clipped those coupons and looked for whatever was free – whether she had a plan to use it or not. At the heart of this was the need for protecting – for providing and provisioning the essential needs of a family, and I began in those days to understand the way that money could be stretched.

I used to hear the water come on, go off, come on, go off – – and years later, I realized that she showered that way. She got wet, turned off the water and lathered, turned it on and rinsed, and repeated. She double-couponed so much that they had an entire storage room of cereals and other dry goods. I was having a bowl of cereal on one visit when I noticed something moving in the milk. On close inspection, I was horrified to discover that I was eating bug swimmers. From that experience, I learned the importance of checking expiration dates.

But I also learned something else: the extreme effort on not wasting water did not transfer to the waste happening when the dry goods spoiled before they could be used. Sufficiency seemed at odds between having too little and having too much – and there are problems on both ends of that spectrum when we forget the importance of fine-tuning our needs to the middle ground of enough.

All this examining things and re-calibrating my mindset about the things I’d accumulated made me think of a childhood story that my mother used to tell me. At one time in my life, I was an aim-to-please rule following preacher’s kid who, in my young child voice, would ask my mother, “Did I bees good?” whenever the stringent need for good behavior in church or at some event, visit, or outing was over and done and I was needing my recognition and report card on my efforts. Likely, I was ready to get back to business as usual with a little badness kicked into gear and let go of the need for my best behavior.

But as I looked at all the things I was holding hostage in my barn and attic, I wanted to re-ask that question through a different lens: Did I bees a good steward of things?

Nearing 60 with retirement dreams of lightening the load to ease the way for RV travel and a significantly downsized house in the near future, I began a quest last year to clean out our home and attic and purge the anchoring cargo of a lifetime of teaching and boxes of mementos and sentiments that have outlived their purpose in my life. It’s time to prepare for the next chapter – whatever that may be. No one can move forward who is so heavily anchored in the past.

I have a question:

Did I bees a good steward of things?

Or did I hoard them?

I read a game-changing book in 2024 by Robin Wall Kimmerer, entitled Braiding Sweetgrass. At several times throughout the book, I found myself silently weeping tears for all of the boxing of things I have done in my life. As I turned the pages of that book, I imagined the life involved in all these items – the trees that once stood tall in the forest sheltering nests of woodland critters – trees that gave their lives to become books and furniture and toys; the plants that yielded cotton and other fibers to become linens and towels and clothes; the hands of craftsmen and seamstresses who shaped the creation of each thing. I was gobsmacked.

In the first month of 2025, I finished Kimmerer’s most recent book, The Serviceberry, in which she discusses the ethics of reciprocity in a gift economy. Abundance and gratitude are at their purest when we understand the concepts of the gift economy as opposed to the market economy. There is life-changing magic in the mindset and understanding that the notions of self-sufficiency and hoarding are at odds with our values and people we hold dear – and may actually be harming them. Her essay that summarizes the main concepts in her book is available here, but I offer this warning: be ready for a seismic shift in your thinking once you read it. It tops any sermon I’ve ever heard on Matthew 6:26, and ironically, birds are at the heart of the Bible verse and at the heart of The Serviceberry.

It begs the cyclical question at the end of each day, each week, each month of striving to live in a more simplistic and abundant way: did I bees good? And at the end of 2024, I could finally say that I’ve moved from being a failing steward of accumulated things to passing with a C. I still have a way to go, but I’m doing the work of managing the mountain by keeping my One Little Word front and center. I don’t buy the extra tube of toothpaste just because it’s on sale – – because I have enough. I leave some for others, and I leave room for honoring the uncluttered spaces and the sense of order. And I can feel it.

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A Found Poem: Ghost Spells

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Sometimes I like to take a stack of books and search for lines that speak to me to create found poems in random order to see if they make sense – kind of like a scavenger hunt. I used the following books and found 4 ten-syllable lines broken into five syllables with line breaks, in this order:

The Lost Spells by Robert McFarlane and Jackie Morris

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

James by Percival Everett

North Woods by Daniel Mason

Ghost Spells

the world is sudden

with wonder again

we can go over

the new winter list

I’m sorry to have

barged into your home~

how affectionate

I feel for my ghosts

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2025 Book Club Picks

If you’re ever in the small rural county in Georgia where I live, you might find yourself at one of the two traffic lights we have, right along the courthouse square. You’d look at the historic buildings lining the square and wonder about the curious little shops and what all goes on inside once you stood back long enough to take note of the intricate patterns in the old brick facades. There’s a bank, a couple of hair salons, a coffee shop, a donut shop, a few boutiques, a couple of restaurants (every small town in Georgia must have a good barbecue joint), a dentist and an optician’s office, a realty office, a mercantile, a Chamber of Commerce office, and…….{drumroll, please}………my favorite: a bookstore, A Novel Experience. Click here to check it out.

It’s not just another familiar bookstore. This one is magical, with its historic interior brick walls with rustic plaster repairs, a creaky wooden floor, a refrigerator where you can have a free water if you need one (there is wine in there, too, and a coffee bar), a circle of eccentric mismatched comfy chairs by the back door so you can sit and talk or write or knit or….just sit, and the most amazing lineup of books for the monthly book clubs. They have a few different clubs, too, which meet at different times and focus on different interests so that there is a club for everyone.

I got there on their first day of business in 2025, and I saw that they had their books already chosen from their last meeting of 2024. They’ll create cards that readers can take to put on their refrigerators to remind them of which book is scheduled for which club for which month, but I took a snapshot or two of the “rough draft” of the lineup with the cards that tell what the books will be. Some of them have not even come in yet.

This is the place I go when I need the calm reassurance that there is still peace to be found in a place other than my own home. I swear, I think they have some kind of essential oil that is called stress-free small-town down-home-rooted belonging or something. Every bit of hurried pace disappears right when you walk in. Of course, I’ve lived here long enough to know all who work there, and this shop is one of several places that still greet customers by first name. It thrills me when I walk in and Karen throws her hands up and says, “Hi, Kim!” Chris does, too, and they stop to talk to their customers with sincere interest in what is happening in our busy lives.

What are you reading this year? I’ve started the year with Rosamunde Pilcher’s book Winter Solstice, but I’ve already cheated and delved into the movie. I finished The Beautiful and the Wild over the break just as the year turned, and we’ll have our office book club to discuss that one January 21. I started James, and I’m halfway finished. If you have any recommendations, please share. I tend to prefer nonfiction that reads like fiction or that spotlights travel or nature in some fresh and unexpected way. Sy Montgomery is always, always a favorite. I’m looking for a few readers who can recommend some amazing reads, and I hope you’ll be one of them!

If you’re ever here, call me and I’ll run right down to the shop and meet you for coffee or wine and book talk, ’cause that’s how we do things in small towns here in Georgia.

our local bookstore

announced its monthly choices

for each reading club

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A Calm Christmas: Clearing a Path for Dreams

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This December, I’ve been slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2019), and in her final chapter of this book laden with the peace of the season, Chapter 10, Kempton encourages us to plan and dream in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. clearing a path for all good things to come our way. The week between these holidays is what Kempson calls The Hush – – the best time of year for reflecting on the past years’ blessings and dreaming about the bountiful blessings that the coming year will bring.

This week brings some of the most delightful times of the year – the time we gather with family to celebrate Christmas. Yesterday, we took our three Schnoodles on a long walk around the farm on their favorite trails to celebrate Winter Solstice by keeping close to nature. Today, we will begin our first gathering of the season with our oldest grandson, who will turn 15 in February. This week will also bring the birth of our seventh grandchild in our family. As we clear paths for dreams, we are blessed beyond measure to build those dreams with the grandchildren that we love and hold so dearly today. For tomorrow, they will be holding their own grandchildren and sharing the stories of their own lives.

The Hush is more important now than ever in my day to day life – particularly the older I get. I need to carve out an every-weekend Hush, if only for a day. I’ve realized that what I see and hear in the news and on social media, what I read in books and magazines, and even in my own conversations with others can prompt the most horrific nightmares. It’s why I have to be so intentional about what I allow to enter my mind and heart. It’s why I don’t read horror genre books or watch scary movies anymore, as I once did. It’s why I read more Mary Oliver poetry and books like A Calm Christmas.

Take last night, for example. Yesterday as we finished having lunch, my husband casually showed me a photograph of four planes he’d taken this week as he was waiting on a recipient of a delivery. The planes were flying parallel, but they were emitting trails that were all of the same length and looked more like horses racing on a track where the inside horse is a set distance just ahead of the second, each horse a distance ahead and aside from the next, as if running down the straightaway on a racetrack.

He told me that he finally had seen with his own eyes why people might be persuaded to believe in the chem trail conspiracy. I examined the otherwise benign photo, and sure enough – these were not passenger jets, because generally they follow a flight path. They tend to stay in line, as I’ve watched through the windows at night from my bed just southwest of the Atlanta Airport. There is a seasonal shift in the tree line from my vantage point, but the planes have flown consistently above certain branches of the trees, always in a straight line, and there are usually about 2 minutes between the blinking lights of these planes. They don’t fly side by side the way his photograph showed. I have watched the planes for years as a relaxation tool – much like counting sheep, only counting planes.

Naturally, with a headline that had popped up when I was logging into my office computer network earlier this week, I’d seen the start of a nightmare. I should have known one was coming. The headline assured the world that World War 3 has begun. With all of the drone footage recently, a cup and half of this toxic cinnamon-sugar story was added to the mix, blending and swirling in the most obnoxious way in my dream, too.

I was standing on the lawn of the office in my dream (keep in mind that my office has no lawn, so this was a different space). Apparently, we all liked to go outside and eat (in real life, we either eat together at tables or go out to lunch), but we stood instead of having any picnic tables outside anywhere. I could see four glowing red/orange mini nuclear weapons about the shape of softballs, positioned much like the planes in the photograph, coming at me from the sky as I stood there in the dream, and I heard the voice of our PowerSchool Coordinator’s voice announcing that “We have been The Pirates,” to our community, as a final sign-off since she had seen the oncoming missile attack as well and was making our final phone call to say goodbye to all the families and students we’d served in our area in rural Georgia.

I ran for cover behind a bush, knowing it would not matter, and after surviving the nightmare attack, I stood up, charred, recognizing that in my condition I would not survive much longer. I looked at the rubble of the building and how disaster had struck in this small area, and then began walking home along a nature trail, peaceful and covered in evergreen trees and bare limbs where birds were all gathered in great number on the branches, singing and chirping as if nothing had happened.

I stopped and thought about them. They knew. They knew, and they had flown outside the realm of danger to avoid the exposure to the radiation. This was their survival technique.

It occurred to me that I need to be more like these birds – to be vigilant and aware of what I allow to seep into my mind, because it will blow up in the most unexpected ways. I must be the gatekeeper of all that goes in.

My husband asked why I’d been awake earlier. I told him never to show me scary photos again, and he chuckled, remarking that he didn’t see how the picture he’d shown me was scary.

And then I explained it all to him.

He has agreed: no more pictures that might cause me to lose sleep and wake up as a signed-off Pirate on a charred countdown clock.

I could use your most comforting book recommendations as my next reading. I’ll be listening to books that bring peaceful assurance on Audible as I make my way north this week to Kentucky to swaddle my new grandson and rock him in my arms, praying for his safety and health all the days of his life. Prayer. Needed now more than ever in our lives and in our world.

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A Calm Christmas: Comfort and Joy in Contemplation of Spirit

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This December, I’m slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2020), and in Chapter 3, she presents ways to seek comfort and joy in winter by seeking our natural rhythms and learning from nature.

To contemplate ways to simplify and nourish our spirits, Kempson encourages us to go gently into winter mornings by tiptoeing to the kitchen, light candles, meditate, or write as self-care measures. She asks these questions:

How could you simplify your home, schedule, digital life? How can you nourish your mind, body, spirit, and loved ones, and what rituals will see you through winter?

So much can be simpler. I once heard that if you feel stressed and need to hit the reset button, spend a half hour in nature. But those who are really busy should spend an hour. Sometimes we don’t have control over simplifying our work schedules or the digital life that work requires, but when home is the haven that allows the respite at day’s end, there is much to be loved. I walk my dogs along a path my husband keeps cut on the farm…and would you believe I go in my flannel pajamas and boots, praying all the while that a delivery truck doesn’t come calling while I’m out in my loungewear? We drink cinnamon orange tea in the evenings in winter, and while we don’t have a real log fireplace, we keep the gas logs going if it’s anywhere below 60 degrees outside. These are the ways we nourish ourselves, and the simple rituals are what will take us through winter. Sometimes, doing as little as possible on weekends is the order of the day, letting the book stacks speak their stories to us as we read the day away.

One of my favorite thoughts in this chapter is “the sounds of winter are cracking in poetry, wind in the trees, rain on the roof, a spitting fire, the thump of a log falling away from the flames, rustling paper, mulled wine poured steaming into a glass, the rhythm of the weather forecast calmly announcing that the storms will rage on.”

That’s the epitome of hygge at its finest – in its best season to be fully experienced as a way to embrace the season of winter.

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A Calm Christmas: Mission Christmas Constellations!

This December, I’m slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2019), savoring every chapter like it’s a rich dessert, drizzled with all the best chocolate, caramel, and whipped cream. In Chapter 2, Kempton presents ways to reflect on and consider various aspects of Christmas and what they truly mean to us. We take the scores of importance from Chapter 1 to create Christmas constellations and consider ways to reduce tension and enhance the holiday season, especially when comparing our rankings with those of a spouse.

I completed my Christmas Constellation by graphing, in rankings of importance on scales of 1-10, the areas of faith, magic, connection, abundance, and heritage as they relate to what Christmas means to me. I examined my completed graph and imagined what I might call my constellation in the clear, cold night so brightly shining. The reclined reader. The image is vividly there as I look at the outline of the recliner with my head propped back, my feet up on the footrest of the chair, flanked by three warm schnoodles and a book in my hands.

Truth. That’s me in the night sky in my own personal twinkling constellation. Exactly as I would want to be, right there on a red line stretching out between the star dots.

Imagine my surprise when I went back through Chapter 1 and asked my husband to share his personal 1-10 rankings of these same parts of Christmas in the quest to create an overlay. I hadn’t revealed my rankings to him when I asked him to share his. I jotted them down, then flipped the chart to rank his in green.

Here are our overlaid results:

Just as Kempton intended, I’m sure, this led to some deep conversation about our Christmas ideals and values. Out of 50 possible perfectly matched points, we were 2 1/2 points divergent: a half point off on heritage, one point off on faith, and one point off on connection. Magic and abundance were matched exactly, at 6 and 5 respectively.

We talked about the things we noticed and wondered, most notably that we were curious if the loss of our mothers impacted our seemingly low rankings on heritage. Perhaps some of the traditions felt “less” now that they were no longer here – or too painful to continue. We also talked about what made sense as we worked our way through the discussion points. It makes sense that we both ranked faith the highest, since church has played a tremendous role throughout our lives. It makes sense that abundance, to us, means that we have just enough – without living lives of excess. It makes sense that we value connection with others since we have family and friends with whom we enjoy spending time at holidays. It makes sense that the magic of Christmas still hangs in the air as wonder and belief that unseen guests and unexplained events can be seen and felt more strongly at Christmas than any other time.

Three hours later, we were still sharing Christmas memories and reasons we believe things are the way they are now in each of these areas. Kempton noted that these rankings can change each year -and we both agreed that five or ten years ago, our rankings would have been different in most categories. I think what we both enjoyed more than anything was the evening of deep conversation with dogs piled in our laps, instrumental Christmas music playing softly in the background as we shared favorite times and reflections.

The upside is that our values are similar enough that we aren’t likely to disagree or argue about the way things should be done. The downside is that where rankings seem they may be perceived as weak, there isn’t a higher ranking in the other to pull either one of us up on the scale where some areas might generate more “Christmas spirit” if they were higher.

That fine line between Christmas spirit and stress, though, is a reflection for a later chapter.

The shared perspective is that right now, we’re exactly where we want to be.

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A Calm Christmas: Magic

This December, I’m slowly making my way through Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year by Beth Kempton (2019). In Chapter 1, she presents The Five Stories of Christmas that focus on faith, magic, connection, abundance, and heritage. Today, I’m remembering the magic of Christmas I felt as a child.

Kempton asks us to reflect: Where did your ideas about Saint Nicholas/Father Christmas/Santa Claus come from? Did you enjoy other magical stories as a child?

There is no question about where my idea of Santa was rooted. I still have my favorite version of The Night Before Christmas, illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa. Though it is in poor condition from being loved on so much, it was the one my mother read to me over and over and over again, and the one that still comes to mind on every mention of Clement C. Moore’s Letter to Saint Nicholas. The sugarplum illustration is my favorite one in the entire book. The art of the bygone era appeals to me.

Of course, there was other magic. Rudolph’s red nose and a team of flying reindeer were captivating images filled with magic. Frosty’s magical topcoat that brought him to life – and then couldn’t keep him cold enough to survive – still brings winter wonderland feelings even through the tears of a melted snowman.

Magic Acrostic

Merry Christmas

And Happy New Year

Going on 59 times now ~ and

I still love the magic of

Childhood at Christmas

On a scale of 1-10, rating how much magic and wonder are important to me at Christmas, I’d rate them a 6.

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Spiritual Journey – December 2024


Scrolling in search of the next book to read on an upcoming flight, my right thumb becoming numb, I came to a screeching halt on Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May.  

This, I nodded approvingly to myself, thinking of all the exhausting change that 2024 has brought.  This may be just the medicine my soul needs right now.

Many of the changes life has brought throughout the year are positive ones, but even good change requires a period of adjustment.  The not-so-good changes, even more so.  

I clicked the Kindle sample download and examined the Table of Contents, organized in chapters by the seven cold months of the year starting in October and ending in Late March.  I read the reviews on Goodreads and delved into the sample text, asking at each decision point whether this would be the best investment of my time and cognitive energy – since both are forever fleeting.

After finishing the sample, I knew this was the book for me.  I downloaded the full book.

I realize I’ve struck book gold when I find a book that has me hanging on each sentence, savoring its power and meaning as I apply it to my life and feel the peace it brings.  Each thought, it seems, fits like a glove when I’ve found the right book for the right time.  It’s like a medicinal salve, like Candy Cane chapstick on parched lips whipped sick by the wind.  

All at once, my breathing deepens and my heart slows from its racing pace.  I feel my tongue stop pressing against the roof of my mouth in its usual stress-pressure position.  My shoulders drop and my neck muscles loosen.  I read May’s soothing words as I consider the approaching winter break: 

“Winter is when I reorganize my bookshelves and read all the books I acquired in the previous year and failed to actually read. It is also the time when I reread beloved novels, for the pleasure of reacquainting myself with old friends….In winter, I want concepts to chew over in a pool of lamplight—slow, spiritual reading, a reinforcement of the soul. Winter is a time for libraries, the muffled quiet of book stacks and the scent of old pages and dust. In winter, I can spend hours in silent pursuit of a half-understood concept or a detail of history. There is nowhere else to be, after all.”

And in this, I can rest with full hope and anticipation that the gas logs and my heated throw will bring needed warmth.  My dogs will bring peace and deep comfort as they vie for snoozing position next to me, and my books will bring the golden silence and space my heart needs as I sip a cup of honeyed hot tea and reread: …. there is nowhere else to be, after all.  

My next book will be Calm Christmas by Beth Kempton. What will you be reading, dear friend, in the sweet, snug nook of home, in the nestled bliss of nowhere else to be?

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