Memoirous

I’ll be leaving my job soon at the bike shop and starting at a local version of REI in Okemos called Playmakers. This coincides with an effort on my part to get out more and meet people and broaden my network. A 2024 goal of mine after being in the area for two and a half years. Using Facebook, I joined a women’s hiking group that meets multiple times a week all over the area. So on any given day I can locate a walk and meet up! Before starting my new job, I wanted to take little break and planned a trip to Ohio. I’ve already got my bus/train tickets. I arranged an itinerary that takes me in a loop from East Lansing to Detroit to Cleveland where a college friend will pick me up. After a few days she and I will drive to Athens, Ohio for me to meet up with an old high school friend. After a few days there, I’ll bus to Cincinnati to see friends from my Chicago days. My grandfather lived in Cincinnati; it’s where my Dad went to high school. His school still stands. The couple told me the...

Outside my French doors a light snow is falling, dusting the decks. The past few days have been gray, the skies leaden with nickel-colored clouds. Yet, I’m struck by the fact that I’m in nature, that I’m living this life. My here and now, despite the gray and gloom, includes red birds, the sounds of wind, dry leaves rustling, a disgruntled squirrel chirping. For so long I was closed off. I was in Chicago from the age of 23 until I left during the pandemic in 2020 I will be 65 this year. I never planned to be gone from nature that long. Chicago was supposed to be a one-summer commitment, a stop along the way, but at the end of my summer in 1982 I had to ask myself—Where is it I’m trying to get to, where am I going? I didn’t have a ready answer. I’d just graduated from Ohio University with a degree in secondary education—a career I wasn’t sure I really wanted to pursue. All I knew was this: I loved Jesus and I wanted to do good in the world. That’s how I ended up in Chicago at an inn...

I took a break from the KKK the past couple of weeks. Actually a break from blogging about recent events in Charlottesville. A break from the politics, the statements, retractions, mis-statements, arguments over statues, etc, etc, etc. It’s exhausting. On many sides. I’m from Dayton, Ohio, Centerville to be exact. A well-heeled community, triple A high school, definitely upper-middle class. But as a kid I rode my bike everywhere, anywhere two wheels might take me. I also met some friends at camp and often drove to Cadiz and locales close to it in southeastern Ohio, formerly coal country. Then later I went to OU in Athens to finish my Bachelors degree where I rode my bike and ran in the foothills surrounding the university. The Ohio I remember was this: colored leaves in autumn, small towns, Main Streets, hills, small liberal arts colleges, ravines, waterfalls, hiking in Yellow Springs, car wrecks on Friday nights. Conkles's Hollow State Nature Preserve Rim Trail ...

I discovered a letter you wrote to me dated 8/6/83. It was slipped into the pages of an old cookbook. What was I doing thirty years ago—making gravy? You had just gotten married and were expecting a baby. I was still single. “Where does the time go?” you asked in the opening line. Your dad recently retired. That’s when your dad was still living as was mine. Before the fragile brittleness of mortality entered in. You say you’d love to come to Chicago, but your husband has a new job and can’t get away. In Lima, Ohio. “Well,” you write, “you have to start somewhere.” We’d become friends while freshmen in high school. Different schools. I still cannot remember the exact circumstances, but it involved Young Life and meetings with guitars and exuberant singing. “It Only Takes a Spark to Get a Fire Going.” We ended up sitting next to each other and at one point in the song you turn to the person next to you and “pass it on.” The summer before tenth grade we volunteered t...