Birding taught me something this week: you don’t rush. You move from perch to perch. You stop. You wait. You notice. This essay does the same.Perch: PaperThis week, for Environmental Imagination, we read The Conference of the Birds. This is a must-read. Check it out from the library. Buy it if you can. It’s worth

Prized Archie Comic Book CollectionThis week for Environmental Imagination we have the theme of Flora, Fungi, and Fauna: Encountering a “Cabinet of Curiosities.” In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald introduces the idea of the Wunderkammer—a cabinet of curiosities, or more directly translated from German, a cabinet of wonders. Macdonald collects essays about bird nests, ants, mushrooms,

(I wonder what Otis is dreaming about….turn sound on for the full wonderment!)I just started Vesper Flights for my Environmental Imagination course, and honestly — don’t you already love that title?Environmental. Imagination.As if the world is inviting us back into relationship.Early on, Helen Macdonald introduces the idea of the Wunderkammer — a cabinet of wonders.

For a long time, I thought home was a place you could point to on a map.Colorado felt like home.Then Nashville did.Now Pittsburgh does too.But somewhere along the way, I realized that none of those places ever fully answered the question.John Denver has been singing in my head lately—“Comin’ home to a place he’d never

Intentions. Prepare a story about the best-laid plans. As I sit at my desk, laptop open, blank screen, my coffee nearly finished, I’m faced with it. Writing. Funny, not funny. I started an MFA in creative writing program at Chatham University in the fall. And guess what happened to my writing? It stopped. I’ve struggled

I got some hard feedback recently—from more than one person.Apparently… I’m not a great communicator.Oof.Right to the throat.If you know me, you know this is the hill I would’ve sworn I could die on: going there, getting real, saying the thing. Depth is my love language.So why am I suddenly the villain in a ghosting

We’re counting down to the second Wicked movie coming out, and the other night I said to Kelly, very earnestly:“Wait—there are two Wicked movies??”She blinked.“Yes,” she said. “There was a first one. We saw it together.”And I swear to you: I have zero memory of that film. Nothing. Not a green face, not a song,

Something has felt a bit off lately. Maybe it’s the move to Pittsburgh — this new house, this new rhythm, this new version of community. Maybe it’s being both student and teacher at Chatham University. Maybe it’s turning 50 — brain fog, weight shifts, temperature spikes — the whole premenopause parade.Probably yes to all of

Someone once told me you can have anything in the world you want—if you’re willing to ask a thousand people for it.I think about that a lot. Has anyone ever actually done it?There’s a woman who stands outside Margeaux’s restaurant in East Liberty, right at the corner of North Highland and Center. She’s asked me

Lately, I’ve been noticing how often I chase the feeling of being productive more than I chase the feeling of being alive.That tiny hit of satisfaction when I cross something off my list — the email sent, the load of laundry folded, the essay turned in — it’s dopamine, pure and simple. My brain loves

On grief, belonging, and reclaiming the blue and gold.Content note: mentions of school violence and grief.When I say I’m a cougar, let’s be clear: I don’t mean the older-woman-chasing-younger-boys thing. Ewww. No. I mean Evergreen High School. Blue and gold. The place I’ve spent most of my life saying I hated. The place I blamed

Not Evergreen. Not Again.A school shooting reopens old wounds and binds us in collective grief.I felt my phone buzz in my pocket in the dark movie theater. Potential spam again? But then I glanced at my watch: my best friend. She rarely calls this time of day. My stomach tightened. Another buzz. And another. I