All the houses where I have lived disappeared along with the husbands who were once a delicate dream of expectations. Now, my cozy terrarium apartment full of plants and animals enliven my life with their happy faces and boundless love. Even the flowers smile when I...

Betty June and I sit in a coffee shop hunkered over our lattes and talk about the Vietnam Conflict and all the young people we lost. Guilt racked us both for not fighting alongside our peers. We knew it was a government war and growing up in the Hills we had little...

Sometimes, I recall all the dogs who have drifted through my life like angels sent from heaven to lift my spirits and give me somebody to love. Several revelations occurred while caught up in pondering so intense it brought them back to life. I could feel the warmth...

When a child, I often sat with my eyes closed in stillness on the bank of Dismal Creek waiting for God to call me back to my real home. Occasionally, my brother would stumble across me sitting there optimistic our Creator would be yanking me back any second. Nothing...

My friend Betty June made living on the bend of Dismal Creek a reckless adventure we enjoyed while biding our time till leaving the hollers to become successful. We had no idea what success even looked like outside the place where we grew up. I thought having...

When sitting each morning on my meditation chair striving to become a better more humble person, my mind often wanders to a childhood full of redneck boys. They made my life a misery by grabbing at whatever part of my body they found appealing, and worse they would...

Ants dance on the petals of peonies and robins find my feet fascinating objects when I walk by. Coyotes hover on the periphery observant but shy enough for pleasant company. Altogether, nature turns my day into a charming event after I’ve spent the morning mulling...

Nearing seventy, I find freedom in my aloneness. No one to tell me when to eat, sleep, or milk the cows. No looming parents hovering nearby to make sure I ‘act right’ and eat my vegetables, even the disgusting canned green beans, limp as seaweed hanging from a whale’s...

I frighten people when expressing my desire to live in the higher realms with the mystics and all the dogs and cats who have shared my life. No doubt, they’re enjoying the beauty not found here, a place hidden under concrete, a cluttered landscape of transformers and...

I grew up on the bend of Dismal Creek, an Appalachian holler that offers nothing to brag about, except I probably know a thing or two about living a solitary life surrounded by trees and wildflowers. Nature sustained me, nature nourished me, and above all nature...

I work hard at trying to turn my mind into a useful tool instead of the annoying nuisance it tends to be. It distorts reality and often fills me with dread. Sometimes, I call Betty June and ask her if we can meet for coffee and discuss my wayward thoughts. She’s an...

Betty June laughs at me when we set off for a walk along a dirt path not a mile long. I’m busy stuffing a collapsible walking stick, pain pills, Band Aids, and a water bottle in my knapsack. She laughs like a female contralto with a voice so dark it sounds like a man...