grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Sunday Letter: 02.11.18

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Sunday Letter

Sunday Letter?

Remember when letter writing was a thing? You may be too young to remember, but I do. I religiously wrote letters to my penpal in Australia. When I was away at camp, I wrote letters to Staci and Momma even though I got home before my news. Back home, I wrote letters to the new friends I’d made at camp (friends I would likely never see again). On occasion, my best friends and I even wrote letters. I could look from my bedroom window and see the water tower and stand of trees marking the town where many of them lived. During summer, we may as well have lived in different states.

On this icy Sunday morning in Northwest Arkansas (19 degree as I write), I’m writing a Sunday Letter to you. And if I can stick with it (no promises), this will be a regular Sunday thing each week as a way to recap my writing, my travels, whatever happens to be going on (or not going on). Sort of a “Dear Diary” entry.Continue Reading

My Room and its View

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My Room with a View

My Room and its View

When I sit on the couch with my Macbook or journal, I am usually absorbed in my work. My view is my computer screen or scribbly writing or messy edits. A few days ago, I’d been working for several hours without a break. (I recommend a brain break at least every hour, so I wasn’t following my own advice.) Anyway, I put away my edits, took my glass of tea, and moved to the other side of the couch for a slight change of scenery.

The house was silent. The streaming sunlight made the windows glow and the floors gleam.

After days of cold cloud cover, a tablespoon of sunlight uplifts, inspires, warms, tricks me into believing winter is over even when it isn’t.

I took a picture.

And then I studied the picture.Continue Reading

these clouds in Texas…

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These clouds in TexasHey everyone! I’m dropping in to show you these clouds in Texas, AND telling you I haven’t been kidnapped or worse. I’ve been traveling. For the most part, traveling has kept me unplugged. (A good thing sometimes, right?)

I take lots and lots of pictures every day. This morning, when I looked back through some of my recent photos, I thought this one, in particular, was worth sharing.

Last week, these clouds in Texas greeted me as I drove south beyond the Red River.

When I was a kid, I spent lots of time staring at the clouds, naming the shapes, watching them sail over our house light as goose feathers. Now, as an adult, I don’t spend nearly enough time looking up.

I suspect none of us do.

Well, farmers might.

When I first moved to Waco for college, I remember telling Daddy about the clouds. I told him they were different in Waco. He stared at me like I was crazy and said nothing. At the time, I thought the land and the clouds spread wider than at home which seems impossible (and yes, crazy) when home is pancake flat delta farmland. Now, looking back, the trees probably played a part in my perspective. The trees in Waco were shrubbier and squattier than those at home. The trees made the sky above more expansive.

Under those clouds, I felt smaller.Continue Reading

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