Wild turkeys are roaming in the neighborhood. My first turkey sighting was on an early winter morning. I was driving home from the gym when I turned into our street and saw a mom with her two young kids standing on the sidewalk. The mom was pointing in the direction of our house just a few blocks down. I followed her finger to see four … Continue reading There Goes the Neighborhood
“DO NOT RENT BOX 841!” Someone scrawled the note in black sharpie and tacked it on the wall over a table littered with papers and assorted office supplies. I stared at it while I waited for the post officer worker to reappear. She was retrieving a package that ended up in the main branch of the post office where I live. Behind me several people … Continue reading Post Office: Strange Welcome Here
At first I mistook the high-pitched keen for the sound of a distant chainsaw. But the woods stretched for at least a half mile to the nearest house. And it was early February with snow on the ground and the kind of bracing cold that locks your lungs in a vice. The only people hearty enough to be out cutting wood on this kind of … Continue reading Tree Song
It’s a time to get real cozy with your local surroundings. Maybe you never noticed that house three streets over with the chicken coop in the far side of the yard. Maybe you were tempted to slip a note in their mailbox offering to trade toilet paper for eggs. Maybe you changed your mind because that’s like swapping the Hope diamond for a handful of … Continue reading We Are Here
The first week when the world unraveled I went for a run as if it were any other March day. I pick up the bike path where it intersects with my favorite, go-to café. This was back in the care free days when our governor was restricting gatherings to 50 people or less. The café was open with a lot less life inside than there … Continue reading What The Magnolia Knows
