parenting

This Mountain

We live at the base of So-Bahli- Ahli. Lofty lady. It’s the name local tribes gave the mountain that presides over the living here in our far-flung corner of the Pacific Northwest. The valley of the Stillaguamish. This was before the settlers came and the farmer that lost his horse. The mountain that was once…

Moonlight Sonata

I stand in the garden watching a crescent moon hover above the tips of the fir trees. The thrushes surge in their singing as they do at dusk and swallows swirl about the eves. Music drifts out an open window – my son playing piano – like I have never heard before. Teenage angst…

Geese

A spring, not so long ago, I discovered two Canada geese in the field by the Blue Pool. A spring when my father was still alive. The pool is a luminous ribbon of water that arches away from the river and cuts across a fallow field. I visit this part of the river often. Follow the…