AUTHOR
How much dirt does it take to make a field? The container garden on my balcony held several pots of dirt. When the pandemic came and constricted our lives in so many ways, that small apartment became the scope of my days. This was extended only a little by bike rides on a nearby trail,... Continue Reading →
Autumn makes me think of my grandmother’s pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies. She’d cover them in orange buttercream frosting and then decorate the tops with Jack-o’-lantern faces using a rich cocoa icing. I loved those cookies. My grandmother sold them for 35 cents apiece at the local pumpkin festival, and they sold out every year. My grandmother... Continue Reading →
All winter I watched a neighbor’s deck lights from my back window as they glowed against the grey and cold. The string of lights stretched between tree branches above the wooden deck. Morning and evening, I watched those lights create a small space of warmth against the dark woods beyond. I suppose I needed that... Continue Reading →
It layered itself like a fuzzy film along baseboards I didn’t often clean. It gathered on books I hadn’t opened in years. Dust marked what I liked to forget. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” the clergy would recite on Ash Wednesday in the church of my childhood. I remember... Continue Reading →
I remember lying on my back, looking up through tree branches. Leaves crunched under me, and my new mountain bike lay on top of me. It was not a promising beginning. In fact, it was a broken rib. Painful as the injury felt, I actually found it a bit comforting. This fracture gave me a... Continue Reading →
"I feel like I've been doing a lot of waiting lately. Maybe you've felt something like that, too. For one thing, I'm waiting for the pandemic to end. I know I'm not alone in that. We're waiting for days when friends can gather without a second thought. We're waiting to get safely back to work... Continue Reading →
Callie J. Smith 