Ashworth Alcove

Dear Violet, At mine and your Daddy's wedding reception we were under a severe tornado warning. Warning. As in, there was a tornado... on the ground. Some full-blown Aunty Em commotion. The rain beat against the windows, the thunder rattled them. We should have been taking cover. We should have stopped celebrating. Instead, we danced. We danced the best dancing we've ever done to a live band playing 'Last Dance with Mary Jane.' The band played and we celebrated the coming of the new year. After we rang our hearts out on the dance floor, we made our way through the torrential rain to our cabin at David Crockett State Park. He never carried me over the threshold. I could make up all kinds of believable reasons why this long-held custom failed to happen, but I'm pretty fond of the truth. And the truth is we were really really drunk. I had a startling streak of crimson stained down the front of my white dress. There are times you ask someone to hold your d...

She jotted down something on a post-it with her pink pen. Then she reached across the air that separated us and stuck the little paper on my notebook. It had the dates of two different weekends scrawled across it and that was it. Puzzled, I looked to her for an explanation. "Pick one," she said. "Pick when you'd like to go stay at the cabin." You see, this person's family has a cabin right on the lake. I had been extra stressed and she happens to be extra kind. That person is a coworker - my boss, to be exact. Sometimes in life we find ourselves in the company of kind people who recognize when your soul needs some nourishment.

Back in December I entered an essay contest. The prize - A 42 acre farm in Tennesssee. In my hometown, no less. The winner would be contacted on Christmas Eve. I went over the scenario in my head... What receiving that call on Christmas Eve would feel like. I longed for it. Unfortunately, per the contest rules, they did not receive enough entries. They refunded the entry fees and now I'm left with this non-winning essay. This was the first essay I had written in a few years. It was a challenging one, because the stakes were high. Nothing came of it, but even so, I am glad I took the time to write it. Fun fact: Contest rules stated there was 500 word maximum. My word count? 500. Nurturing the Flame     Every individual has something special that brings him or her joy. It is a flame within us. It is heart-warming and nourishes our soul. My flame is Tennessee. I have a yearning that is quenched only by the simple wonderments of a country life there. As a child ...

Every so often I find myself slipping down into my muddy hole. I just can't get any traction to climb back up. Some days I'll give a weak try, only for my foot to slip. I just slide right back down into the muddy hole I know well. So most days I don't even bother trying to get out. I just get comfortable there in the hole, which is detrimental on many levels. The muddy hole is depression. Famously, Winston Churchill referred to his depression as “the black dog.” Sitting on his lap, it haunted him. It's the perfect metaphor. However, I actually have a real life black dog so that one doesn't work as well for me. My relationship with this foe began with anxiety. Over time it morphed. I was the cocoon - a vessel for anxiety to live within. Within the cocoon existed the perfect environment for the anxiety to transform. It hibernated, then contorted itself just before emerging as depression. I say emerged because the depression transcends beyond me. The depression i...

Oregon Zoo: The first thing we did while in Portland was visit the zoo. It was one of the best zoos I've been to. There were giraffes, elephants, tigers, cougars, a polar bear, and so many more. Of all these amazing creatures, Violet's favorite animal at the zoo was the ducks. She loved them so much that we visited them more than once. Second on Violet's list went to a large turtle that we could watch under the water. And third was the vultures. Yep, the vultures. While she liked the "moan-keys" and "effunts" and "diraffes"... they just don't live up to those vultures. The only thing Violet didn't jive with was a "nake" a volunteer was handling with the opportunity to touch it. There was also a strange large swimming lizard that straight up alarmed her. I don't blame her. Swimming two foot lizards give me the heebie-jeebies as well. That guy was weird. Portland Rose Garden: T...

I was recently plucking warm tousled laundry out of a laundry basket and folding each piece one by one. Each folded article went into the stack of the person it belonged to. Ben's stack was taking significantly more time because all of his clothes were inside out. They always are. I made a prompt announcement that went something like, "From now on, if your clothes are put in the dirty clothes basket inside out, then they'll be put away inside out." It was like I was a kid again. Standing in my mom's laundry room, her saying the same thing to me. Except it was me saying it this time. What I'm trying to say is the damn tables have turned. Growing up, elders were always always rambling on about how fast time flies. When Violet was first born, or even when I was pregnant, people would give me advice on how I need to enjoy it because she'll be two, then twelve, then twenty before I know it. When I was a child and heard the time flies talk I would respond ...