Busy Hands Homestead

Strong, cold wind blows down the beach, the water is so cold my toes tingled and the kids still get soaked from head to toe, splashing in the space between solid land and sea. The kids shriek and run.  They gather up rocks, poke at pieces of jelly fish, and these moments alone would have been worth the drive.  The moments with friends and the most decadent camping food, in the history of camping, would have been worth the drive. But, the excuse for this trip, is a moment 1 minute and 55 seconds in length. Intellectually, I had been prepared for this moment. We had listened to podcasts, heard other people's stories, shushed the children on the eleven hour drive split between two days: "Shhh!!! Listen, to this story.  They are talking about what we are about to see." "Don't look at the sun without your glasses.  It's dangerous." The sun was bright, the temperature dropped, our shadows become duplicate, the spaces between the leaves turne...

For an entire week our mornings and evenings were filled with the chink, chink, chink of cherry pits. Two cherry pies, cherry danishes , and quart bags of pitted cherries are in the freezer.   Jars of apple cherry jam are on the shelf. Once a year we drive up to Finley Point to pick cherries in the summer sun and then jump into the clear  cold water of Flathead lake.   The silver fruit picking ladder gets warm  in the sun and is almost to hot  to touch against my skin as we move from one tree to the next. The sticky, sweet, dark red juice runs down my fingers as I fill the same basket over and over, carrying it up and down the ladder, and we fill the cardboard boxes we brought along. The kids pick cherries for a while, and then get distracted and sprawl on blankets, eating lunch and running through a sprinkler the owner’s of the orchard left on. Between my feet and the ground, between where I stand on the ladder and where the ...

These days I am largely stuck driving to work, since I am juggling my husbands schedule, dropping off and picking up kids from friend's houses, unpredictable summer activities and all those other errands that have to happen.  When I have to the opportunity, I usually choose to walk the 1.2 miles from my house to work. During the winter months, in the dark and snow, I ride the bus. The commute gives me an opportunity to interact, talk with, listen to, and observe folks I might never bump into otherwise. This is a series of non-fiction snap shots that crowded around in my head into I finally put them on paper.  I entered it in the Missoula Public Library - 2017 Writing Contest, in a moment of boldness, that made my skin tingle, my heart pound and caused me anxiety for days... I didn't win. And even though the skin on my arms is already prickling and the heart pounding and anxiety is sure to follow, I am sharing my writing here: En Route The man across from me is...

“You know what's great about plants.” “I don't know. What?” “That they are plants!!!” Sylvan looks at me incredulously. “Don't you get it?” Ivory shrugs, and eats a raspberry. The sky is peach and glowing. We are sneaking a few raspberries at dusk. The kids are up, way to late, once again. The three of us walked down the street to water our garden plot. Adam is washing the dishes. The house is finally starting to cool down. These fifteen minutes of my day are the only ones that seem to echo the rhythm of past summers. I am trying to breathe – just breathe. The sky fades to dark. On the way home, I cradle a hand full of raspberries to share. Soon after, we fall into our beds, on top of sheets and blankets. I feel like I am treading water – cold icy water – that makes it hard to breathe. I could dip under any moment. My days and weeks are filled up. I run back and forth, back and forth, drop off ki...

I have been writing and re-writing an an artist statement to accompany my First Friday show at the Missoula Community Food Co-op. The official event is on April 7th, but my pots will be on display for the remainder of the month. "This will be easy," I thought. After all, the wheat design carved onto the surface of my mugs, bowls and plates is an external expression of a more than a decade long ritual I have created for myself to process the news of violence and conflict present in our world. But still, the words to articulate feelings and motions are hard to construct. I was 18 for 31 days when September 11th became a date marooned in the year 2001 and we entered a pre- and post- world. Slightly tipsy, from my first honey brown beer, at an elevation over 5000 ft, in my best friend's college dorm, I watched bright dots flashing across a night sky and I was struck by the surreal beauty of what could have been mistaken as fireworks on screen but what were in reali...