The Porch Postscript

I've been selecting a word since at least 2019, with the exception of last year.  The month leading up to 2023 made for a lost year, but more on that another day.  The word I've chosen for 2024 is release .  I don't have clarity yet on why I chose this word, or perhaps it has chosen me; the year will tell.   In the days leading up to the new year, I reread past journals, searching words, and while I found several that I liked release seemed to keep calling me back.  Then, while I was reading articles about resolutions I found one writer who talked about the origin of the word resolution.  It comes from the Latin  resolvēre - meaning to loosen or release .  That sealed the deal for me, release would be my 2024 word. I find it interesting, that the cultural norm is to vow to be a "new you in the new year" and each year we we put all these expectations in place.  Then reality comes colliding in around February and many of the chosen resolu...

It's been a while since I busted out the colored pencils and created a bird.  In 2017, I had a little venture into drawing birds.  I drew a cardinal, a blue jay, and a mountain bluebird. After drawing three birds, I ventured on to the next thing. Then a few weeks ago I dusted off my bird art and created stickers to sell at the local gift shop.  Kind of unexpectedly, this inspired me to pick up my colored pencils and create a new bird piece. Settle in and let me tell you a little story about the decision to draw a mostly black bird, the red-winged blackbird.   Before my Dad passed away, passed away 19 years ago, he had a conversation with my oldest brother about red-winged blackbirds. After all these years I don't remember the details and the memory can play tricks.  In the cloudy memory, there is something about my brother seeing a flock of them take flight the day Dad passed.  The details have been lost to time, but the meaning and symbolism of the re...

Title:    Food - A Love Story Author:   Jim Gaffigan Type:   Memoir For starters, I cheated and listened to the audiobook, but a book is a book, right?  My only mistake with this decision was that I made it while traveling on an airplane so I couldn't laugh out loud as much as I would have had I listened to it at home. Jim Gaffigan narrates the book himself, which I'm sure adds to the funniness of the audiobook.  He is a stand-up comedian after all. I chose this book because I love books about food, especially memoirs.  I also needed a book to distract me while we flew several hours on a trip home.  I figured it would get me through a few flights and if I never finished it, no big deal, as that is usually the fate of audiobooks on trips with me.  That was not the fate of this book.  I listened to the entire book and was sad when it was over.  I will actually be listening to it again, it was that good.  When Gaffigan tells you h...

Eat The City by Robin Shulman Title:    Eat the City Author:   Robin Shulman Type:   Regional Food From the back of the book:   Food, of course, is about hunger - but it's also about community.  With humor and insight,  Eat the City  shows how, in places like New York, people have found ways to use their collective hunger to build their own kind of city. Why I picked this book up:   I'm always drawn to books about food.   This book  caught my eye at the library and I knew I had to read it. My thoughts on the book:   I really enjoyed reading this book.  Lots of great history was mixed in with the present-day food seen. This is a book about the people who are passionate about the food they help create.  When Shulman describes the people she talks to, she does a fantastic job of giving you enough detail to create a vivid mental picture, without getting too wrapped up in all the little bitty details of it a...

I have faint childhood memories of my grandfather’s garden.  Climbing the steps to the upper yard adjacent to the sprawling garden, the pride, and joy of my grandfather’s summers.   1519 B Street taken in 1998 when my grandmother sold the house Their home that once stood at 1519 B Street in Omaha, Nebraska, was built in kind of a hillside with an exterior staircase leading to the upstairs apartment where my great grandmother lived.  The big garden my grandfather was so proud of was of those stairs.  I wish I had photos of his garden, it's its glory days.  Unfortunately, it's all gone, the house was torn down and the gardens are no more.  The lot is vacant, the google earth view shows me a grassy green lot where the house once stood.   My grandfather was a solemn man who rolled his own cigarettes and sat with his cats watching the world go by from the back porch of this house.  He started seeds in old cotton socks he cut into small square...

I'm going to venture into an area we're all told not to discuss. Many of us were raised not to discuss money, faith, or politics, especially in mixed company. What the hell does that even mean - mixed company? Anywho... Faith, this is a slippery slope in any conversation. I'm guaranteed to upset someone in this post. I was raised in the Lutheran Church. We went nearly every Sunday and by we I mean my mom and I. My dad was what many refer to as a "sprinkler". He attended major church holidays, baptisms, weddings, and funerals. I attended the same church my entire childhood. I took my first communion and was confirmed. I was an acolyte and did things with the youth group. As an adult, I got married in the same church, a church I hadn't attended in years. Here's the catch, I left church. Not just the church I grew up in, but the complete concept of it. I didn't leave my faith, just the established idea of church. As an adult I've become...