April 8, 2025—One of my daughters and her daughter are helping me pack. They’ve come the long day’s drive to move me out of the cabin. It’s a slow process . . . pack for storage, donate, carry down the street to my temporary home? They are patient and full of energy, efficient, taping box…

They’re all in, busy settling where they will sleep and shower and have that first cup of coffee or smoothie. We all fit in my little place down the road from Stonecroft for our traditional first-night-in tacos and Rhubarb Apple Crumb Pie. More chairs out on the little front patio than I imagined possible. The…

I’m usually celebrating the last of the peonies this time of year with poems and pitcherfuls of these astonishing beauties filling the old porch. Do you ever get over the wonder of a peony? Oliver’s “beauty the brave, the exemplary, blazing open…eager to be wild and perfect for the moment before they are nothing, forever.”…

I’m early for the third service so I sit with a fresh little donut hole and half-cup of coffee in the foyer, watching the full sanctuary empty. It’s barely held them all, these animated bubbly ones, for the popular 10:00 Sunday morning service. It’s my first time back in a while. First time without him.…

One by one they dip down into the driveway in front of the cabin. I knew my kids would come. Some were already on their way when they got the final phone call from his bedside at the hospital, “Your Daddy’s gone.” But I hadn’t expected these grown grandchildren to step away from their busy…

The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or…

One of my trustworthy counselors said to me some years ago, as we were talking about this old place, the grandparents who first made it home, and my longing to share a bit of it with the world, “Maybe you should just keep it to yourself.” While it didn’t exactly hurt my feelings—well, maybe a…

I remember the Christmas, long ago now, that we had a Family Reunion here in Montana, in this cabin. We five “kids” lived all across the country, nearly in its four corners, with our little families. Just getting us all here and a spot for everyone to sleep was a challenge. It was glorious! But…

I am still every age that I have been . . . —Madeleine L ‘Engle I’m seventy-five years old today. That doesn’t even compute. I am still Becky, daughter of Albert and Lois, sister to Kathy, Mary, Sally, and Birthday Buddy brother Bill. I’m still the third grade me retelling the chapter Mrs. Jenkins read…

Morning shadows . . . The eyes of the aspen are watching to see if before you cross over to that next place you’ll take your simple life and grind it up in your imagination so as to build exquisite arbors of memory your children and children’s children can stand beneath and find shade. If…