Something unexpected happens when these two seemingly very similar butterflies, shown above sharing a coneflower in my Texas hill country garden, open their wings. When it unfolds, the one on the left in the photo above reveals through its stained-glass pattern that it is a monarch: The one pictured on the right in the photo […]
A little girl, perhaps eighteen months old, accompanied her mom into the bank lobby where I was waiting a few days ago. The young woman seated across from me spoke to her, “Hi. What’s your name?” The little girl didn’t answer verbally; instead she trotted the ten or so feet over to the young woman […]
During the summer before sixth grade, I watered the tomatoes in my mother’s large garden next to the chicken house, reading a Hardy Boys mystery as I slouched in a lawn chair and waited to move the hose to the next plant. The plants were several feet high, staked and arranged in two long rows. […]
My paternal grandmother enticed squirrels close to her house: she tied a shallow tin can in the hackberry tree next to the side porch with a piece of baling wire, put a few shelled pecans in, and waited patiently inside the window, her .22 caliber rifle lying across her calico-aproned lap. No squirrels were going […]
One of my most distinct early memories is of being perhaps four years old and feeling heartbroken. Perhaps I was upset at one of my siblings, or my mother had answered “no” to something I wanted; I don’t remember the cause of my pain. What I do remember clearly is the strong emotion of childhood: […]
When I’m outside, my mind both calms and awakens. At least that’s the way I perceive it, and it seems I’m not alone. According to Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, “Over one hundred studies . . . confirm that one of the main benefits of spending time in nature is stress […]
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. –Loren Eiseley Here in the Texas hill country on this May Saturday morning, it’s been raining off and on for the past thirty hours or so. The forecast for the next few hours is for more thunderstorms, so I zipped outside just now […]
Prickly pear cactus blooms always remind me of my mother. They seem to flower here in the Texas hill country around Mother’s Day every year, and they’ve been coloring the landscape with their sunny faces this week: After I became an adult, when I would visit my mother–before she started the long Alzheimer’s decline toward […]
“Primitive” art can stir up something primal within us today, a feeling of kinship with the artist although we may be separated by centuries. Sharman Apt Russell, professor at Western New Mexico University and nature/science writer, writes of finding and holding a Mogollon pottery shard (which she replaces after examining) in the Gila National Forest: […]
You know that moment when a musician takes over the stage? His hands elegantly fold around an instrument, and he plays a melody the audience hears with their hearts. Or a woman begins in a rich alto voice, and she causes every listener to fall in awe of her. You know–that instant when a performer creates […]
Studies in Color and Composition
Radical Retirement
A Glimpse into My Life & Passions
Joann Pensabene
Where observation and imagination meet nature in poetry.
pursuing a life of purpose
Writing our way to awareness
Living life outside the lines
A Story Circle Network blog for and by women
A Diary of Love, Literature, and Growing Up in Wartime America
Practicing Wonder 