Tinker Mountain

Three years ago I went to the Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop at Hollins Univesity in Virginia. (Annie Dillard wrote Pilgrim at Tinker Creek about that river!) After attending a Saturday writing class in New York four years ago, I spent time working on pieces at home, but I wanted to spend some time with other writers again. I never felt that a traditional “writing workshop” was for me — all the horror stories of personality conflicts and people tearing each other’s work apart — why pay money for that? For someone just starting out at this, what a creativity killer.

Tinker Mountain’s programs, though, sounded so much more supportive, and I loved my week there. Plenty of quiet time to write but also a great group of people to share work with. Covid shut down the program for the next two years, and I might have been the first person to sign up when they opened it up again this June. Due to the cancellation of the creative non-fiction class I’d signed up for, I wound up in a fiction one that turned out to be exactly where I needed to be. I suppose that regardless of what genre you’re working in, the things that make good fiction also make good writing in general, and it was all relevant. I felt so inspired listening to classmates read their writing, and was absolutely honored when someone said that the piece I read felt like a magic carpet ride (thanks, Jane!)

The fields at sunset.

After a day of writing and class and reading and talking to people at dinner, exploring campus was my favorite thing to do. It filled up my well. The Hollins grounds were summer-lush, with soup bowl sized magnolia flowers and rocking chairs on shady verandas, a tucked away garden and a full moon (Margaret Wise Brown wrote Goodnight Moon here!) I found a piano in a dance studio and played in the middle of the night, I went for sunset-moonrise walks. I found a bird’s nest made of pine needle mulch and strips of crepe myrtle bark.

I found an inch-high ceramic ghost that some pay-it-forward soul left on a trash can for me to find — a handful of these friendly spirits turned up around campus and all I can say is: THANK YOU, I was not having the best day that day due to some worries at home, but finding this little ghost turned it all around. I carried that tiny guy in my pocket for the entire rest of the week.

Bird’s nest

My dorm room.

Tiny ghost.

I made new friends whom I know I will see again, and I’ve been smiling as I write this whole thing. This spring I was pin-focused on finishing up the blind school project (which I still need to post about), but Tinker marked the start of my switch to summer, to writing. I’m back at the page, and I thank Tinker Mountain and the Greater Columbus Arts Council, who generously provided funding to help make it happen.

Snow Days

Snow always reminds me of winters growing up in New England. Being glued to the radio waiting to find out if school had been cancelled, hoping for a day of sledding and Mom's homemade hot chocolate. Building snow forts and ice skating on the pond down the road. Every now and then, a magical night when it just kept snowing and snowing, before cars made tracks on our dead-end street, before the plows woke up. Mom and Dad would pull my brother and me on our sleds for a walk down the road, followed by our black Labrador and occasionally even our cat. Snowy nights like this always felt a little like Christmas Eve, somehow special, little elves working their magic while you sleep and then you wake up to morning wonderland.

John introduced me to cross country skiing when we first met and I've been hooked ever since, although sadly there haven't been many consistently snowy winters in Columbus lately. Just this week we were supposed to get a storm that turned out to be a bunch of rain. It's been a pretty mild winter, and I'm so grateful for the snow we did get this month. John and I explored the canal path in Hebron which I'd seen from route 70 and always wondered about— it goes through a covered bridge!— and hit our close-to-home favorite trail at Glacier Ridge Metro Park.

Tracks on the trail

The Glacier Ridge woods

Covered foot bridge in Hebron

Snow day for Pippin

Totally on my bucket list though?— riding Pippin in the snow. It gave me a glimpse of what winter life might be like when we move to Vermont in a few years, and I loved it.

(Photos of me & Pip courtesy of Maddy Hayes)

Standby Vacations

Every now and then John has what’s called a long overnight. He’ll fly the last flight to some city, spend the entire next day there, and then fly out again super early the next morning. I try to go with him when I can— it’s an airline employee perk that I love because these trips feel like little weekend getaways we probably wouldn’t otherwise schedule, to places we might not otherwise plan to visit. 2021 brought us to Hartford (three times!), Jacksonville, Savannah, Greenville South Carolina, and Panama City.

Greenville, South Carolina

I love that we have favorite restaurants in cities that aren’t home. The biggest slice of cake you could imagine at the Boll Weevil in Augusta. Oooo the spaghetti carbonara at Bruno’s in Little Rock!— and zabagliones made and hand-delivered by Bruno himself when we told him John tries to get Little Rock flights just so we can go to his restaurant. Last year we discovered Sorella in Hartford, Connecticut, where I had what I think might be my favorite chocolate dessert ever: their semi-freddo. I haven’t had one anywhere else that’s as good!

Hiking at the UNF nature trails, Jacksonville

The day of a trip, I fill up cat food bowls, sequester the bird, pack light, and head to the airport where I’ll catch up with John in Atlanta. People ask me how I get a seat and if I get to reserve one. The answer is no. You’re flying standby, so you only get a seat if there any empty ones, and these are assigned in order of company seniority, so employees who’ve been with Delta the longest get first dibs. There’s a back-end system to see how many seats are available on a flight and how many folks are waiting for them; this way you can decide which flight you have the best chance on, but there’s always the possibility you could wind up in a pickle.

Connecticut river path in December, Hartford

I’ve been pretty fortunate. Sometimes I’ve made it onto a flight only because a paid passenger didn’t show up; one time I got the very last seat but then was asked to give it up for a passenger who was running down the hallway; and there’s only been one time that I was actually stranded. John was piloting a 5:30 am flight and I didn’t get a seat. I stood at the plate glass window, waving at John as the Tug pushed his plane back from the gate, then spent ALL DAY trying to get any combination of flights back home with no luck whatsoever. At 10pm I finally treated myself to a nice hotel and a good dinner and made it home the next morning.

Panama City Beach, Florida

New places are always fun to explore, and places we’ve already been feel like coming “home” but still give us new things to do. John goes for a run, we find a spot for breakfast, pack a knapsack, and walk and walk and walk. At some point we figure out where we want to go for dinner. And although getting up insanely early the next morning is no fun, it is so worth it for all these little adventures we have.

Hugging a mushroom, Panama City.