The guy in the red Jeep at my back bumper roars GO FASTER and I try, within the limits; arrive to the woods in fight-or-flight and breathe; on inhale, my jacket, on exhale, my phone; OUT OF THE WAY! a dude in a spit-shined Range Rover guns MOVE OVER so he can park HERE here where I’m breathing despite 8 other spaces HERE, HERE! another man yells to a bitch too far ahead, two men now and two dogs four times as loud COME HERE! STOP! I don’t know, don’t care don’t stay leave and park at another trailhead where an old Retriever waits sweet and ghostlike until an angry voice bellows, makes us startle GET THE FUCK OVER HERE! she bows her head greeting, prayer, or a mutual understand that the woods would be so much quieter if we could beat back the invasives just a bit.
Commonplace books are essentially scrapbooks filled with items of every kind: recipes, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, and prayers. Paper Prayers – A Commonplace Book is a collection of some favorite quotes, both old and new, from many years ago and ones I still reach for today for inspiration or solace, for guidance or reassurance. I hope you enjoy this issue of MANIFEST (zine) — maybe you will find something to copy into your own commonplace book!
This issue was inspired by my friend, author Judith Bruder.
INGREDIENTS: collaged elements, photocopies, digital art, ephemera, hand-drawn fonts, laser prints, photography, poetry, quotes, rubber stamp art, vintage artwork. With special thanks to Robert Graves, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Susan Page, Henry Stanley Haskins, Robert Fulghum, Robert Frost, Benjamin Hoff, Dale Carlson, May Sarton, Don Miguel Ruiz, Janet Mills, Elizabeth Gilbert, Walt Whitman, Ted Andrews, Henry David Thoreau, Richard Carlson, Osho, Henry Beston, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Emily Dickinson, Anne Lamott, Ram Dass, Daniel Goleman, Carl Sagan, Mary Oliver, Louise Hay, Brené Brown, Brian Tracy, Newton, Isaac Newton, Neale Donald Walsch, and Reinhold Niebuhr.
This issue has been printed and mailed thanks to the generous support of readers. I’m hoping to continue publishing MANIFEST (zine) through 2026, but could use your help. Please click here for more information.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
I’m reposting this series of blog posts because as I type, there are bulldozers in Big Bend National Park. There are scared, evil people building walls on sacred desert ground, while the wicked ones paint golden calves to worship.This series represents the collective experiences and thoughts of three women who set out on a 1,500 mile trek across West Texas in December 2003. Development, tourism, climate change and politics have altered the area a lot since then, but this was their unforgettable “Road Trip: Big Bend.”
Gulf Coast Highway
Gulf coast highway, he worked the rails
He worked the rice fields with their cold dark wells
He worked the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico
The only thing we’ve owned is this old house here by the road
And when he dies he says he’ll catch some blackbird’s wing
And we will fly away to heaven
Come some sweet blue bonnet spring
She walked through springtime when I was home
The days were sweet, our nights were warm
The seasons changed, the jobs would come
The flowers fade, and this old house felt so alone
When the work took me away
And when she dies she says she’ll catch some blackbird’s wing
And she will fly away to heaven
Come some sweet blue bonnet spring
Highway 90, the jobs are gone
We kept our garden, we set the sun
This is the only place on Earth blue bonnets grow
And once a year they come and go
At this old house here by the road
And when we die we say we’ll catch some blackbird’s wing
And we will fly away to heaven
Come some sweet blue bonnet spring
Yes when we die we say we’ll catch some blackbird’s wing
And we will fly away together
Come some sweet blue bonnet spring
Songwriters: Danny Flowers / James Brown / Nanci Griffith
I’m reposting this series of blog posts because as I type, there are bulldozers in Big Bend National Park. There are scared, evil people building walls on sacred desert ground, while the wicked ones paint golden calves to worship.This series represents the collective experiences and thoughts of three women who set out on a 1,500 mile trek across West Texas in December 2003. Development, tourism, climate change and politics have altered the area a lot since then, but this was their unforgettable “Road Trip: Big Bend.”
MONDAY
Up before dawn, we dressed and packed up the car in dark. A short stop for coffee and we were on our way to the looming Chisos Mountain range, the centerpiece of Big Bend National Park.
Desert sunrise
The Chisos Mountains are the heart of Big Bend National Park. They extend twenty miles from Punta de la Sierra in the southwest to Panther Junction in the northeast. It is the only mountain range totally contained within a single national park. Among the highest peaks in the range are Emory Peak (7,835 feet above sea level), Lost Mine Peak (7,535 feet), Toll Mountain (7,415 feet), and Casa Grande Peak (7,325 feet).
A 7-mile long paved road climbs into the Chisos Mountains Basin, a circular valley ringed by craggy peaks. In the Basin there is a developed National Park Service Campground and Park ranger stationed. Chisos Mountains Lodge operates the only hotel in the park and a dining room with the grandest view of any in Texas. The Chisos Mountains support vegetation that includes Douglas fir, Aspen, Arizona cypress, Maple, Ponderosa pine, and Madrone. Daytime highs in the summer rarely exceed 90 in the Basin, and there is plenty of shade.
Driving in the dark was amazing. Beyond our headlights, there were no signs of life as far as the eye could see. DeLinda stopped the car, turned off the lights and engine, and we were at once blanketed in the softest, widest blanket of darkness. The air was cool and refreshing. Slowly, outlines of the mountains in front of us began to appear, and life sprang forth, including a jack rabbit that crossed in our path!
A right turn brought us to the mouth of the Chisos Basin road, a winding hilly drive that led us up along the side of the mountains, up over and down to the center of this crown-like mountain range. At the center and bottom sat a sprawling campground and the Chisos Mountain Lodge. Perched inside the Basin, cupped by giant mountain walls, the Lodge faces south over Big Bend. A natural opening called “The Window” afforded views of the park as the sun climbed higher in the morning sky.
An all-windowed dining room was the perfect amphitheater for the sunrise, and we had front row seats as we enjoyed a scrumptious buffet. We ate like we hadn’t in days, and devoured our filled plates of eggs, bacon, fruit, biscuits, grits and salsa.
Sunrise from the Chisos Basin
Some photos and souvenirs, and we were back on the road again, backtracking through Panther Junction, north up 385, 70 miles back into Marathon. Overhead, hawks and eagles watched our departure and the sun on our backs pushed us along out from Big Bend and east along Highway 90.
Nancy Griffith sings about Highways 90, the Gulf Coast Highway. She was just one of our eclectic selection of music on this trip, that included the Partridge Family, Paul Simon, Bare Naked Ladies, Willie Nelson, Indigo Girls, Steely Dan, Dixie Chicks, Robert Earl Keene, Randy Travis, Sting, Amy Mann, Suzy Bogus, Eagles, Sheryl Crow, Lyle Lovettt, Lilith Fair, Gypsy Kings, and Abba. Each of us sharing our favorites along the way.
Highway 90 took us six hours east through West Texas, past Sanderson and Dryden on into Langtry. Here, we stopped at the Judge Roy Bean Museum. This was a weary day, and you could see our enthusiasm wane just a bit as we made plans to stop for lunch and visit the exciting town of Del Rio.
The slick and glossy brochure for Del Rio said this was THE place to be—shopping, recreation, happy Mexican dancers. We drove down now-congested Highway 90 into a stretch of every fast food joint, gas station, and car dealer known.
In the first five minutes, we saw more people than we had in the past three days! It was quite a culture shock—the cars, the people, the noise! I was reminded of Gulliver returning from the land of the Houyhnhms where he lives among the majestic horse-creatures and the “Yahoos” or humans…
“I must freely confess the sight of them filled me only with hatred, and the more by reflecting on the near alliance I had to them,” wrote Jonathan Swift. “For although since my unfortunate exile from the Houyhnhm country, I had compelled my self to tolerate the sight of Yahoos…yet my memory and imagination were perpetually filled with the virtues and idea of those exalted Houyhnhm.”
We stopped in “historic” downtown Del Rio, wondering how this congestion of dollar stores and loan shops was “The Best of the Border”? We didn’t say much as we drove east out of Del Rio, rather quickly, and on into San Antonio, then north through Johnson City and back into Austin.
In an airplane, you are aloft at some 30,000 feet in a vast skyscape of blue and white, with only your fellow travelers as company. And then, as you make the approach to your destination, the world slowly reappears. You begin to make out cities and buildings, houses and backyards, cars and people. With one weighty tug you are back to earth, and back home.
In the same way, our world took shape again. Out from the expanses of vast desert and majestic mountains, out from the quiet and dark, back into this bustling hub of activity—for better or for worse.
By the time we reached Austin at 7:30 Monday night, we had charted more than 1,500 miles on our adventure. Our modern-day weariness happily replaced by a shared exhaustion, a feeling of accomplishment, and a heartfelt sense of camaraderie.
“There’s a pale sky in the east
all the stars are in the west
Oh, here’s to all the dreamers
may our open hearts find rest
The wing and the wheel are gonna carry us along
And we’ll have memories for company
long after the songs are gone.”
I’m reposting this series of blog posts because as I type, there are bulldozers in Big Bend National Park. There are scared, evil people building walls on sacred desert ground, while the wicked ones paint golden calves to worship.This series represents the collective experiences and thoughts of three women who set out on a 1,500 mile trek across West Texas in December 2003. Development, tourism, climate change and politics have altered the area a lot since then, but this was their unforgettable “Road Trip: Big Bend.”
SUNDAY
Presidio (pop 4,167) was the largest town we visited since Fort Stockton. The Mexican influence was obvious in this bordertown, and we drove through rather quickly intent on a visit to Mexico.
And so we drove, through Presido, through the border patrol, over the bridge and on into Ojinaga, Mexico. Encapsulated in our American SUV, we looked out the window into this dusty, congested town bustling with activity—car dealers, restaurant, pinata stores and street vendors.
It was at the first intersection that I realized this was not what I expected. As we sat at a red light, ready to head right, the car behind us beeped its horn. I looked up to see if we could take a right on red and saw not one sign in English! Storefronts, street signs…all, of course, in Spanish!
There has been no easy transition from English to Spanish, from America to Mexico. We were on foreign soil, so foreign that even our adventurous souls agreed to turn around. And so we drove right and then left and then right back to the border crossing, where we spent more time waiting to get back into the U.S. than we did in Mexico!
In our seats, we waited as patiently as we slowly approached the ominous border patrol. Forty-five minutes later, DeLinda rolled down the window and the border patrol officer asked if we were all U.S. citizens. In unison, without a word, the three of us held up our driver’s licenses and smiled. The officer almost laughed…these three pale white women in red bandannas with travel brochures and beef jerky strewn across the front seat. U.S. citizens indeed!
Mexico behind us, we appropriately stopped at a Presidio restaurant, El Alamo, and feasted on salsa and chips, tacos and burritos.
Driving back the River Road, we saw backwards where we had been, and stopped along the way to snap photos we had missed on our earlier journey. Weary, we camped out at the hotel for the night. Tomorrow, we drive home…
View of the rio grand, back towards Presidio, from the “big hill”Chisos Mountains from El Camino Del Rio
I’m reposting this series of blog posts because as I type, there are bulldozers in Big Bend National Park. There are scared, evil people building walls on sacred desert ground, while the wicked ones paint golden calves to worship.This series represents the collective experiences and thoughts of three women who set out on a 1,500 mile trek across West Texas in December 2003. Development, tourism, climate change and politics have altered the area a lot since then, but this was their unforgettable “Road Trip: Big Bend.”
SUNDAY
EI Camino del Rio extends more than 50 miles from Lajitas to Presidio on Farm-to-Market 170. Considered one of the most spectacular routes in the whole of Texas, El Camino del Rio—the River Road—plunges over mountains and into steep canyons as it follows the sinuous Rio Grande through the desolate but wildly beautiful Chihuahuan Deserted [and] the Big Bend Ranch State Natural Area, a 420-square-mile preserve encompassing the River Road.
The town of Lajitas (la-HEE-tahs) [was] established in 1915 as an Army post to protect settlers from Pancho Villa, the famed Mexican renegade. Route 170 begins its roller-coaster course before you even leave the town, following the Rio Grande west.
The road swings away from the river [and back]….After 2 to 3 miles you’ll see a cluster of weathered volcanic ash formations called hoodoos along the river….The drive then starts a steady, 5-mile climb up the “big hill” of Santana Mesa. A major engineering feat, this portion of the road ascends at a 15% grade. At the summit, an overlook affords superlative views of the canyon below and the rugged, forbidding volcanic landscape that sweeps to the horizon.
As you make your serpentine descent off the mesa, the Rio Grande winds below, a green path through the wild Chihuahuan Desert. The Rio Grande Valley continues to widen, filled with a sculptural array of eroded lava hills and mesas. You cross Panther Creek then pass a narrow fissure known as Closed Canyon, the first in a series of canyons along this undulating stretch. Continuing on, you have expansive scenes of the arid valley below.
About 10 miles farther on, the drive enters windblown Redford, an old farming community. Pressing on through open range, the road finds the river again and passes through a couple of refreshingly green oases before entering Presidio.
National Geographic Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways
El Camino Del Rio presented the most varying scenery of this trip—vast expanses of now-familiar desert, huge terra-cotta stone mesas towering above, white volcanic ash mountains and sculptures called “hoodoos.”
In the Valley—sometimes below, sometimes alongside—lush tall grasses and trees grow. You can almost imagine them deciding to congregate here along side the winding Rio Grand—low grumbling voices in agreement, like the Ents in “Lord of the Rings.”
The curvaceous road takes us up from the river. Winding! Twisting! Throwing us up! the sides of mountains and down! beneath huge walls of rock and then up! again. Then flat road for miles…surprised by smaller hills, like bunny-hops on a roller coaster.
This road was at once exciting and frightening, showing us unimagined sights and then disappearing below the hill in front of us—will it curve right? left? We hold our breaths and wait for the road to materialize before us.
“Loose Livestock” signs make us laugh at the image of risque cattle along the side of the road, catcalling to us as we fly by at 50, now 70, now 15 miles an hour. Ahead, the towns of Lajitas, Redford and Presidio, and then Ojinaga, Mexico.
We had talked about staying at Lajitas—a $200 a night resort dropped down here by some “forward thinking” developer who obviously felt this fabulous, natural wilderness needed an exclusive, high priced spa/resort complete with lighted tennis course, golf course and western-themed shopping plaza.
We drove past without stopping, grateful for our cooler full of snacks and beef jerky. Westward.
This part of the region is called Big Bend Ranch State Park and encompasses 287,000 acres of wilderness. They call it “some of the most remote and rugged terrain in the southwest.”
If you look at a map of electrical light across the U.S., this is the place where it stops. The northeast is cluttered with light, but the farther west you drive, the more dark it becomes. Here, there are no street lights, no glaring disturbances of light or hum of electricity. It is so dark here that the McDonald Observatory, north near Alpine, claims one of the best skies for star observation in the country.
El Camino Del Rio, looking toward Presidio, from the “big hill”Along El Camino Del RioHoodoosHoodoosThe EntsRoller CoasterTowards MexicoDesert colors along El Camino Del RioBy the hand of God
I’m reposting this series of blog posts because as I type, there are bulldozers in Big Bend National Park. There are scared, evil people building walls on sacred desert ground, while the wicked ones paint golden calves to worship.This series represents the collective experiences and thoughts of three women who set out on a 1,500 mile trek across West Texas in December 2003. Development, tourism, climate change and politics have altered the area a lot since then, but this was their unforgettable “Road Trip: Big Bend.”
SUNDAY
Sunday morning found us well-rested and ready for our journey down “El Camino Del Rio,” the River Road. “For over 30 miles, El Camino del Rio twists and winds with the Rio Grande, crossing arroyos, climbing mountains, and hugging canyon walls. The “Big Hill” has one of the steepest grades on a highway in Texas, and at the top, the view looks east to the Chisos Mountains 75 miles, and west into Colorado Canyon and mountain ranges deep into Mexico.”
We awoke early enough to catch the sun rising over the mountains, and all agreed that it would be great to see the sun rise in the park the next morning.
Our first stop, after coffee and a photo opp outside the hotel, was the Terlingua Ghostown, an old mining camp, now partially deserted and left in ruins. An elaborate gift shop—incredibly out of place—kept us occupied for nearly an hour, as we scouted out the first truly commercial establishment since we left Austin.
Historic Terlingua…often referred to as the “Ghostown”…was home of the Chisos Mine, which extracted cinnabar, or Mercury ore. The Chisos was the largest of almost a dozen cinnabar mines in what was once know as the Terlingua Mining District….During the boom days of 1913-1918, the population of Chisos Mine and Historic Terlingua was over 2000.
Several structures have been restored or stabilized. The main building once housed the largest retail store between Del Rio and El Paso. It now houses shops and a restaurant. Many of the stone miners’ cabins have been restored by a new generation of inhabitants. The massive adobe walls of the original owners mansion still stand, and demonstrate how quickly boom goes to bust. Although Historic Terlingua is all private property, much of it is open to the public.
The $1 walking tour brochure led us around the town and ruins, but we opted to skip numbers 6 through 15 and headed to the hauntingly attractive Ghostown Cemetery. Here, we discovered old and new graves adorned with rugged crosses of wood and iron. Candles and monuments dotted the small stone mountains standing in memory of the people who once occupied this town.
Today, people still live in the Ghostown, in makeshift houses created from the ruins. New roofs and walls attach to golden adobe brick skeletons. They call this home and we drive off toward Presidio in our SUV with our newly purchased chachki.
I’m reposting this series of blog posts because as I type, there are bulldozers in Big Bend National Park. There are scared, evil people building walls on sacred desert ground, while the wicked ones paint golden calves to worship.This series represents the collective experiences and thoughts of three women who set out on a 1,500 mile trek across West Texas in December 2003. Development, tourism, climate change and politics have altered the area a lot since then, but this was their unforgettable “Road Trip: Big Bend.”
SATURDAY
Leaving Castolon, we drove through the Rio Grand flood plain, dry and dusty, with trails of old river and flood obvious in the hallowed-out ground. Rocks and sand covered the road and spit up clouds of dust that made our mouths pasty and our lips parched. We stopped for a moment at the grand Santa Elena Canyon — a massive wall of rock standing tall along the Texas and Mexico border. Beyond, Mexico. There.
We turned north, along Old Maverick Road—a well-worn, dirt road leading 13 miles north toward Terlingua and Study Butte (pronounced “stewdy by-oot”).
Driving this isolated road, we felt part of everything. Alone, it was easy to imagine the early visitors here, stunned by the awesomeness of this flat landscape, surrounded by these massive, prehistoric stone mountains.
Santa Elena CanyonAlong the base of Santa Elena CanyonWhere the pavement ends…Old Maverick RoadAlong Old Maverick RoadSeussian landscape
North, at Maverick Junction, we headed northwest up Route 118 into Study Butte and Terlingua. We lunched at Ms. Tracy’s, an eclectic looking cafe with an open porch out front and a blow-up Santa next to the road sign—easy to forget it was only five days until Christmas!
My sister wanted to eat inside. “I’ve had enough of the outdoors today!” And so we sat inside, a room that felt like Ms. Tracy’s dining room, while she prepared our lunch in the kitchen next to us in this “come as you are home cooking emporium.” The three of us enjoyed the stillness of not traveling as we ate our homemade Mexican lunch: salsa, picadillo, burrittos, migas.
After lunch, we made our way to the Big Bend Motor Inn, a 1950s style strip motel planted next to an RV park at the base of stone peaks. From the front of the hotel, you could look back to the vast stone park we had just left.
My sister napped while DeLinda and I took off into town, stopping for wine and snacks. Full from lunch, we opted for snacks in the room before heading to La Kiva for drinks.
Driving along the winding road in the jet black night, we found our way to this local bar recommended by DeLinda’s hairdresser Anne Monique. La Kiva is a “a unique structure of massive sandstone boulders, cut into a terrace overlooking Terlingua Creek.” Just as unique were the patrons inside…
We followed DeLinda down the narrow stone passageway, through ominous doors into a room filled with locals—a skinny woman in overalls with long braided pigtails serving drinks, an urban-looking cowboy, 50ish, seated at the bar, a bawdy woman twisting her cropped bleach blond hair and flirting with the woman next to her, a biker with a long Amish beard leaning against a far wall, and the bass player in funky white sunglasses…
We drank, acutely aware of these strangers and not feeling very welcomed. We were tourists, doing our best to act like we belonged when clearly, we did not. The funny thing is, each of us, in our own way, were as odd as the people in that bar. Our life experiences, our quirks, our eccentricities gave us membership, even if the locals did not.
The turkey its wings fanned like pages in a book left open spine cracked a hundred stories prostrate in the the road as we passed one lone feather floating silent asking to be told.
I’m reposting this series of blog posts because as I type, there are bulldozers in Big Bend National Park. There are scared, evil people building walls on sacred desert ground, while the wicked ones paint golden calves to worship.This series represents the collective experiences and thoughts of three women who set out on a 1,500 mile trek across West Texas in December 2003. Development, tourism, climate change and politics have altered the area a lot since then, but this was their unforgettable “Road Trip: Big Bend.”
SATURDAY
In Castolon, the southernmost point of this drive, we stop to rest. DeLinda and I get out of the car to stretch our legs; I look to my sister in the back seat to ask if she will join us. She sits, knitting, with the most peaceful and contemplative smile on her face. I close the door quietly and catch up with DeLinda.
We came South today with the idea that we will cross into Mexico, near the Santa Elena Canyon. The travel books tell of river crossings where small boats take visitors across to Mexican villages for lunch and shopping, and we are excited. But, a stop at the Castolon Historic District alerts us to a post 9/11 change that makes such crossings illegal and attached to a $5,000 fine and jail time!
It was only by chance that we saw the sign on our way into a small sundries shop in this former border outpost. Inside a woman transplanted here, from Cape Cod of all places, agrees with our decision to not visit Mexico today!
We met a number of such transplanted women on our trip. They were concession hosts in the park, restaurant owners like Ms. Tracy in Study Butte, and shop owners. It seems this is the place for disenchanted but strong women to remake themselves.
At the same time, almost every story of men moving to the area spoke of their love for a woman who would not join them. It seems nothing they did—not the Terlingua mining man who built a theater, or Judge Roy Bean who named a saloon after his love—would entice them to come.
It must take a very special kind of woman to call this desert home. Most we saw or met were independent and capable; strong willed and, I imagine, strong in temperament. Their eyes were bright and steadfast, their faces aged . Were we meeting them all at the same times in their lives? Or does the very personality of this place etch itself into all faces, branding them as belonging here, and no where else.
They were not friendly to us three outsiders. We were visitors, spending our disposable income in their impoverished home town. We were on vacation, they were living. The things we take for granted too numerous to list became glaringly obvious at almost every stop along this trip—in Terlingua and Study Butte, in Presido, in Ojinanga, certainly, and Del Rio.
A cookbook I bought featured the annual Terlingua Chili Cook-off. The original proceeds of the book financed the building of a Big Bend High School. Previously, kids were up at 4:30 a.m. and bussed 160 miles round trip to Alpine each day!
These small towns were so unexpected to the eye, appearing in the middle of nowhere. “We’re not nowhere,” DeLinda would say, “We’re in Terlingua!”
What we expected—what I expected—with the mention of the word “town” was some commercial strip of shops. A New England Main Street complete with stores and people and houses. What we saw, instead, was a mismatched mix of small shacks, trailers transformed into shops and homes, old structures makeshifted into a town of similarly mismatched people, making there way in this barren and rough outpost of America.
Big Bend Pictures It takes a long time to get to know the Big Bend. And to get acquainted with the independent, self-contained, slightly quirky people who call this place home …well, that can take a lifetime. James Evans understands that. Recalling his decision to make the Big Bend his artistic muse and photographic subject, he says, “I moved here in 1988 to dedicate my life to the Big Bend and its people. I don’t shoot pictures and leave and make a book. This work is a slow accumulation of years of being here. The mountains are familiar friends and the people my heroes. I am one of them.”
I’m reposting this series of blog posts because as I type, there are bulldozers in Big Bend National Park. There are scared, evil people building walls on sacred desert ground, while the wicked ones paint golden calves to worship.This series represents the collective experiences and thoughts of three women who set out on a 1,500 mile trek across West Texas in December 2003. Development, tourism, climate change and politics have altered the area a lot since then, but this was their unforgettable “Road Trip: Big Bend.”
SATURDAY
We enter the park at Persimmon Gap, some 40 miles south of Marathon. Almost immediately, the landscape becomes Seussian—small tufts of trees, green and purple cacti, and ocotillo — tall, finger-like plans that grow from a center base and reach upward in random direction. In the spring, they are green with red flowers, but in winter, they are ashen and dry, like fingers of an old man reaching up for something more.
And as we drive, each of us imagines this place in early days, remembers the Indians, the cowboys and ranchers, the horse and cattle that once enjoyed this vast and remote wilderness.
We spy a family of javalina (do not call them pigs!) on our way to Panther Junction. On this trip we will see javalina, deer, jack rabbits, hawks, road runners, cattle, goats, sheep and golden eagles.
After a stop at the Panther Junction Visitor’s Center, we head east to the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive.
We drive for nearly two hours along this curving road, stopping along the way to visit the abandoned Sam Neil Ranch, to enjoy the view from Sotol Vista.
[The] Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive [extends 32 miles south from ] Santa Elena Junction to Santa Elena Canyon overlook in Big Bend National Park .
Wedged within the big bend of the Rio Grande, which forms the U.S. border with Mexico, the 801,163-acre Big Bend National Park contains deserts, canyons, mesas, and mountains. The drive—designed by Ross Maxwell, a geologist and the national park’s first superintendent—gives you a look at Big Bend’s remarkably varied terrain. From Santa Elena Junction in Big Bend National Park, the drive heads south. Mountains command the left view, with Burro Mesa on the right. After about 2 miles, you can make out angular and domed formations in the mountain rock that indicate ancient volcanism. Fortress—like outcroppings called dikes—are also common here. For the next few miles you ascend steadily past boulder strewn slopes. Sotol Vista, one of the best views in the park, offers a stunning perspective on Santa Elena Canyon and the floodplain of the Rio Grande. From here, the drive descends through a series of switchbacks, past views of the unmistakable Mule Ears Peaks formal icon: Tuff Canyon, named for its gray, volcanic ash rock and Cerro Castollan, a pile of volcanic rock that towers 1,000 feet. As you continue curving down, the Chihuahuan Desert benchland suddenly opens before you.
Don’t bypass the old Army compound of Castolon, a frontier trading post still open for business. Paralleling the Rio Grande, the road crosses a fertile floodplain. The scattered remains of old adobe buildings along this stretch mark former farms. About 8 miles from Castolon, the Santa Elena Canyon Overlook offers a view down on the narrow Rio Grande flowing through a chasm with 1,500-foot limestone walls, The road ends half a mile farther, where a 1.5-mile trail leads into the mouth of the canyon.
National Geographic Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways
Javalina in the foregroundOcotilloView from the Ross Maxwell Scenic DriveView from the Ross Maxwell Scenic DriveMule Ears PeaksLooking north from Soltol Vista, where we’ve been…South from Soltol Vista, into Santa Elena Canyon, where we go.
I’m reposting this series of blog posts because as I type, there are bulldozers in Big Bend National Park. There are scared, evil people building walls on sacred desert ground, while the wicked ones paint golden calves to worship.This series represents the collective experiences and thoughts of three women who set out on a 1,500 mile trek across West Texas in December 2003. Development, tourism, climate change and politics have altered the area a lot since then, but this was their unforgettable “Road Trip: Big Bend.”
SATURDAY
Was it the utter silence that kept us awake all night? Perhaps the Southern Pacific railroad that passed in front of the hotel at least three times between midnight and five? Or maybe our weary brains were filled with the thoughts of the adventure ahead? Despite it all, we awoke in the morning full of conversation and excited!
It was cold outside, maybe 35 degrees, but steaming showers in the luxurious bathroom warmed us. With breakfast snacks of fruit and bagels and coffee, we were packed and back on the road by eight.
Route 385 leaves Marathon in the distance behind us, and we make our way south into Big Bend National Park — an 801,000 acres park that fills the southwestern section of Texas and borders the Rio Grand and Mexico. One guidebook compares Big Bend to the size of the state of Rhode Island!
As we drive south toward the park, we pass a large buck along the side of the road. He grandly jumps the fence as we pass, no doubt startled by the ferocity of our mighty engine roaring across the morning desert.
That desert stretches out before us with bold mesas standing wait ahead—this is where we will travel today—to Panther Junction, east to Santa Elena Junction past the Chisos Mountains to our left, then southwest down the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive which “skirts the western slopes of the Chisos Mountains, climbing up to one the park’s most outstanding views at Sotol Vista, then winding down to parallel the Rio Grande at Castolon Historic District and winding up at Santa Elena Canyon trailhead, where the pavement ends.”
Heading South from MarathonOn the road to Big BendHow we travelSantiago Peak, Route 385South on 385 from MarathonChisos Mountain Range near Panther Junction
I’m reposting this series of blog posts because as I type, there are bulldozers in Big Bend National Park. There are scared, evil people building walls on sacred desert ground, while the wicked ones paint golden calves to worship.This series represents the collective experiences and thoughts of three women who set out on a 1,500 mile trek across West Texas in December 2003. Development, tourism, climate change and politics have altered the area a lot since then, but this was their unforgettable “Road Trip: Big Bend.”
FRIDAY
As we drove Route 385, we followed old electrical poles—short well-worn wooden stakes, in no particular shape or conformity. Some still wore glass transformers, now perched in sad and telltale disemploy.
This place is a time capsule. In New England, we make treasure of artifacts and architectures from our colonial past now hundreds of years gone. Here, the past is not so distance—a mere century, slightly more. Much of what they consider recent—houses, shops, utilities—would have been bulldozed eons ago back home, where everyone seems to strive for better and more and now!
The Gage Hotel
The Gage Hotel sits like an oasis in the vast, flat-out landscape. As I flew into Austin (was that just the day before?), we passed north of Houston. The pilot announced it on the intercom and I bravely looked, expecting to see a great metropolis below, as if peering down from a skyscraper. I strained to see for several minutes before I saw it…a small remark on the ground below, like a chess piece on a giant game board.
In the same way, Marathon and The Gage sat in play in this desert.
Our bodies tired and dry from the eight and a half hour drive, we stepped into the lobby and were greeted by a warmth one imagines greeted weary cowboys in from the ranch—deep, soft leather sofas, rocking chairs, and a great buffalo head above a dancing fire. Outside, the 50 degree afternoon seemed an odd backdrop to the evergreen boughs and poinsettia.
Our room was one of the last along a long courtyard next to the main hotel. The doors, made from old mesquite, barely closed and were decorated by a red chile wreath. Inside, two iron beds with soft mattresses, down comforters, wool western blankets, and soft coffee-colored linens invited us in to rest. Clay tiles the color of terra-cotta pots lined the floors, and western decor—chaps, cowboy photos, a cowskin rug—set the mood.
The bathroom was divine with Mexican tile, wooden doors with wrought iron handles, and a linen shower curtain embroidered with colored flowers. Spa bath products of sage and rosemary and welcoming white robes bid us to stay a while and enjoy.
Welcome to Los Portales, “The Porches”, at the Gage Hotel. We hope that you enjoy your stay with us. We would like to share with you some of the more unique aspects of the architecture, the furnishing and the artifacts of the room in which you are staying. All the building materials and decor of Los Portales, and the Gage, are representative of the Mexican, Indian and Anglo cultures of the Big Bend area. They are configured around a courtyard, or “placita”, which historically provided a protected open space and often was the location of the community well. Our “well” is a fountain made in Mexico out of soft volcanic stone called “canterra”. It offers relief from the desert sun with the sound of trickling water and the cooling effect of evaporation.
The adobe bricks, a sun dried mixture of this caliche soil, straw and water, were made on the lot just north of Los Portales. Some 80,000 were used in constructing these buildings. The exterior of the buildings are plastered with three coats of cement stucco while the interior of the rooms are plastered with three coats of gypsum plaster and then finished with a coat of wax. The adobes in the patios and pool area are stabilized and have been left exposed.
One of the first things you might notice at Los Portales are the entry doors to the rooms. These doors, no two of which are the same, are very old mesquite doors salvaged from abandoned buildings in Mexico. Most of these doors are handmade and are well over 100 years old. Please be patient with them if they do not open or close easily.
The ceilings on the porches, “los portales,” and the ceilings in your room are also of an indigenous architectural style. The log beams are called “vigas” while the sticks in between the logs are called “latillas”. The “vigas” are ponderosa pine which can be found north of here in the Fort Davis Mountains. The “latillas” are made from the flower stalk of a local plant called sotol. All the sotol latillas, some 35,000, were collected from a ranch south of here near the entrance to Big Bend Park. Historically a layer of river cane would have laid over the latillas and then plastered with mud to provide a primitive roof system.
The brick on the porches, clay floor tiles and painted bathroom tiles are all from Mexico. The manufacturing processes have changed little from the way they were first made. The clay floor tiles are called “Saltillo” tiles and come from Saltillo, Mexico. The tiles are formed and laid out to dry in the sun before being fired in kilns. You may note that some of the locals dogs were out for their evening stroll before the tiles were quite dry enough. The bathroom tiles are called “Talavera” tile, and along with the sinks are hand made and painted in Dolores Hidalgo in Mexico.
Old mesquite doors The verandaOur room at The GageEmbroidery & Mexican tileVigas and latillas
After naps—who wouldn’t—we changed and made our way to Cafe Cenizo for dinner: “creative regional cuisine with influences from Mexico’s interior, and West Texas cowboy flair.” Chilled by the surprisingly crisp night air, we welcomed the warmth of this gourmet oasis, and were thankful for the fire crackling happily beside our table.
Our newly discovered favorite, Yellow Tail Shiraz, was our wine of choice, and we dined on melt-in-your mouth beef tenderloin, bold T-bone, and perfect rib-eye , each accompanied by salad, vegetables, and luscious horseradish mashed potatoes. For dessert, peach cobbler, blackberry cobbler and a Frangelica for my sister.
Dinner at Cafe Cenizo
Warmed by dinner, a guilty pleasure here in this remote desert town—we headed back to the room…
Quiet.
A quiet I have never heard before. It was…liberating.
No traffic. No hum of electricity. No people moving about.
Quiet.
Not cricket or bird or bug.
Standing alone outside The Gage, I looked up and saw the clearest, darkest sky sparkling with stars—Orion, the Big Dipper, the Milky Way and thousands and thousands I have never seen before.
A slow, steady whooosh—like wind approaching across a marsh—a lone car approached, then faded off into the night beyond.
I’m reposting this series of blog posts because as I type, there are bulldozers in Big Bend National Park. There are scared, evil people building walls on sacred desert ground, while the wicked ones paint golden calves to worship.This series represents the collective experiences and thoughts of three women who set out on a 1,500 mile trek across West Texas in December 2003. Development, tourism, climate change and politics have altered the area a lot since then, but this was their unforgettable “Road Trip: Big Bend.”
FRIDAY
Seven hours along Interstate 10 led us to Fort Stockton, the northern most point of our journey. Here, we stopped for lunch next to the famed Pisano Pete roadrunner statue, then made our way to Route 385 south to Big Bend National Park and Marathon, Texas.
Jen with Pisano Pete, Fort Stockton
Our trip to Marathon led us closer and closer to Big Bend country with high, looming mesas and arid deserts as far as you could see. Wire fences noted ranches and homes along the road.
Signs of approaching Marathon encouraged familiar images: shops, restaurants, people bustling about for last minute holiday gifts. Instead, we crested a small hill and looked down into town—a two block expanse with a gas station, two gift shops, a bank, coffee shop and The Gage Hotel.
It is difficult to describe exactly how foreign this place is. My hometown of Branford is a growing town of 29,000; Austin explodes at 500,000—nearly 18 times as large as Branford. By comparison, the towns we visit on this trip count populations like 7,800 (Fort Stockton), 455 (Marathon), and 250 (Terlingua or Study Butte).
Highway 385 to marathon
The far western end, or Trans-Pecos region, of Texas is the state’s most mythic. Even though few Texans live there, and fewer really know what the place is like, Hollywood has so often used the region as a Texas backdrop that to most, the Trans-Pecos is Texas. And while the dry desert region is a far cry from the more densely populated areas most Texans inhabit, it does symbolize for many Texans the wide-open, rough-and-ready quality they attribute to their state.
The region is some 30,000 miles quare, about the size of South Carolina or about three times the size of New Hampshire. Yet excluding its only city—EI Paso, which sits on its western edge—less than 60,000 people inhabit the place. While measuring the American West, the U.S. Census Bureau determined that an area was “settled” when its population density exceeded six persons per square mile. By those terms, the Trans-Pecos is still frontier. Four of its nine counties—Hudspeth, Culberson, Jeff Davis, and Terrell—have more square miles than people. The area seems a great empty space, an expanse of caliche and rock surrounded by dry mountains.
Even the region’s name speaks for that: “Trans-Pecos” might refer to the region lying on either the eastern or western side of the Pecos River, depending on the namer’s point of view. Trans-Pecos defines the area on the western side—because there are too few people on that side to name anything.
The Trans-Pecos is as isolated as any area in the United States. Residents of Presidio for example—reputed to be the nation’s hottest spot, with summer temperatures often reaching 110 degrees—must drive five hours to the nearest commercial airport at Midland-Odessa. Their daily bread comes from EI Paso, another five hours away. People who live in this town of 3,000 drive 90 miles to pick up a pizza, 60 miles to playa round of golf, and 230 miles to attend a district football game. The leading daily in Presidio is the San Angelo Standard- Times, whose Sunday edition doesn’t reach town until Monday, when the mail arrives.
People who live in tiny Redford, 40 miles downriver, must drive into Presidio or 34 miles into Lajitas over a rough, winding road, to buy a pair of shoes. The drive over Texas Farm-to-Market Road 170 (El Camino Del Rio), from Presidio to Lajitas through Redford, is one of the prettier ones in the state. The pavement snakes, climbs, and dives. On one side, red rocky canyon walls; on the other fall steep banks down to the Rio Grande. On this road, and on other in the Trans-Pecos, isolation has its virtues, but can be downright frightening, too. Three Trans-Pecos counties have no doctors, and even emergency crews can’t reach Redford in less than a half-hour’s time.
Compass American Guides: Texas
Can you imagine a town with only 250 people? That’s just 10% more than my high school graduating class!
One wonders if the urban sprawl so familiar in places like Austin and Branford will ever find its way here. McDonald’s and Targets and Taco Bell and Home Depot. And then one whispers, “I pray not!,” hoping the great and greedy commercial gods did not hear the idea!
I’m reposting this series of blog posts because as I type, there are bulldozers in Big Bend National Park. There are scared, evil people building walls on sacred desert ground, while the wicked ones paint golden calves to worship.This series represents the collective experiences and thoughts of three women who set out on a 1,500 mile trek across West Texas in December 2003. Development, tourism, climate change and politics have altered the area a lot since then, but this was their unforgettable “Road Trip: Big Bend.”
FRIDAY
We began before Friday even showed itself—the three of us packed into our rented Chevy Suburban.
“Not an SUV,” said my sister, with not so subtle anti-establishment undertones. In the end, I think she was most grateful for the space, as it afforded her room to nest and knit, watch and relax…finally.
For all of us, this trip was about relaxing—stopping—more than anything else. My sister, in her second year of grad school, had not lifted her head from a book in more than a year. DeLinda had been juggling multiple work responsibilities, a new house, and family concerns. And I had been at the computer in a six month marathon of just too much work.
And so we chose to stop…pile weary bones and brains into our mighty SUV and travel nearly 600 miles across West Texas to see Big Bend National Park. Our “Road Trip Big Bend.”
In honor of our adventure, DeLinda gifted us with t-shirts she had made, imprinted with our “Road Trip Big Bend” logo. I brought red bandannas for each of us. And so adorned we left Austin on that first day just past seven.
You could hear the weariness in our silence. Imagine three woman about to embark on a four-day road trip with barely a word spoke between them. Imagine!
Instead, my sister knitted meditatively in the back seat. DeLinda comfortably assumed the role of driver as I sat mesmerized by the endless horizons of Texas countryside—low scrub trees and prickly pear cactus dotting endless miles of ranch, farm land and highway.
The back seat was stocked with our food for the trip: fruits and cheese, crackers, sandwich fixins’, goldfish crackers, bagels, breakfast bars, and a box of Christmas cookies DeLinda brought from a cookie swap earlier in the week. Our supply of beef jerky never dwindled, as we stocked up regularly. While our visit to Whittington’s in Johnson City—the absolute best place for beef jerky—was an hour too early, we managed quite well on varieties sampled at every stop along the way. To be honest, I don’t ever recall walking into a convenience store with the sole mission of finding beef jerky, but such was the case. Beef jerky for breakfast? Yes, delightfully, every day.
Along the way, we passed giant wind farms. Resourceful ranchers and oilmen have assumed stewardship of the wind, harnessing its power via these great windmills. They appear to grow from tops of mesas and up from the fields—like a science-fiction landscape, eerie and mysterious.
Three windmills stood on high looking quite biblical. It would not be the first of such references—even our excursion into the desert, itself, seemed symbolic. With a foreign dryness that left both mouth and skin parched, we were lucky that our stay in the desert was a mere four days, not 40!
Windmills on Interstate 10
“Marathon is the gateway to the northern entrance of Big Bend National Park, via Highway 385. This route from Ft. Stockton south through Marathon and on to its end at Persimmon Gap roughly follows that of the great Comanche War Trail. About five miles south of [Marathon] lies the site of old Ft. Pena Colorado. In 1879 the fort was established to stave off Comanche and Apache raids…. In 1881, the Southern Pacific railroad arrived.
Marathon is nestled in the heart of the grassy rangelands of the Marathon Basin. It is cattle country and it is on the railroad lines….One notable cattle baron was Alfred Gage, the owner of 600 sections (384,000 acres) of grazing lands. In 1927, the Gage Hotel was built to serve as his headquarters. Another cattle magnate, Captain Albion Shepard, named the community Marathon because it reminded him of the lands around Marathon, Greece.”
I’d forgive the poet her 15 words requiring definition right on the first page and might even humor her pretention if it weren’t near midnight lights dimmed, phone charging downstairs, the hardbound dictionary shelved nearby, and I, up here, the comfort of pillows and sheets and a blanket to weigh down anxiety that swells in my chest from the strenuous reading required by this book, a soothing mantra to remind myself about cups of tea and imposters who might invade what had otherwise been such a nice day; if I owned the book, I would toss it across the room with take that satisfaction, instead I march it downstairs put it in the pile of books I’ll return to the library, feel somewhat appeased, try not to remember the rogue poets who argued for ululate and lacuna in my own poems with such insistence I erased the lines all-together, life is hard enough these days to suffer the conceit of others.
When you get time to say more…ADDENDUM is a companion piece to the book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musingsand a postscript to the chapter Wednesdays. Think Dan Fogelberg at the grocery store on Christmas Eve or James Blunt on a subway platform in London. Includes 10 new poems by Jen Payne and a haunting collection of color photographs and paintings.
24-page, Full Color 5.5 x 8.5 booklet. Cost: $8.00.
This issue has been printed and mailed thanks to the generous support of readers. I’m hoping to continue publishing MANIFEST (zine) through 2026, but could use your help. Please click here for more information.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
I’m peeling hard boiled eggs at the sink, my soft round belly pressed against the cool steel cold water splashing over fingers when I remember that noise he used to make
that noise that said I was using too much water
or talking too loudly
that I had applied too much perfume used too much lip gloss
that there was too much food on my plate that I’d gained too much weight
that I took too long to find pleasure in things he was already, past tense, done with
it was a noise, a grimace, a groan of displeasure, distaste, distain
that seeps, sometimes, from a faucet running hard and with great abandon, cascades through my fingers down the drain with dregs
The space isn’t that big, really. Large enough for me and the cat and sometimes a guest. A human guest, that is. We have others who don’t take up much room and are more like residents or seasonal visitors.
Just the other night, I watched a spider arrive and make his way, quite confidently, past the television, around the reading lamp, and up the stairs. He was sleeping in my bed when I found him later — the three of us startled at once.
He is not the first spider, nor the last. We have kitchen ones and cellar ones and the orb weaver who cured me of the phobia many years ago now.
I remember once, a small wren spent an afternoon on the screen porch the summer the hornets lived here; and there’s a family of mice who visit each winter, scurrying about in the space above my bed.
We make accommodations as we can, the all of us, with the accepted guidelines that This is my dance space and that is your dance space. The mouse in the kitchen was promptly directed outside. That spider in my bed? Eaten by the cat.
We’re all sharing this small space, it’s best to have manners and compassion…and ground rules.
We all have those moments…a health crisis, a family situation, or an unexpected turn of events that sends us swiftly to the sidelines. And we wait there until we’re ready to get back in the game, until we feel steady and strong enough to step into the routine again.
As many of you know, I had knee replacement surgery last fall. And while my recovery is moving along nicely, one of the unexpected side effects has been a lack of creative output and projects.
When I get frustrated by that, I am reminded of my friend Judith’s advice last summer — that the recovery is the project. That sometimes, those life moments mean that everything else, including our creative pursuits, might need to take a back seat to the larger task at hand.
But, as photographer Joshua Kissi noted: “sometimes the creativity is in the rest.” And it turns out Creative Rest is a thing!
In her book Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity, Saundra Dalton-Smith identifies seven types of rest: physical, mental, emotional, social, sensory, spiritual, and creative.
“Creative Rest,” she explains, “is allowing white space in your life and giving room for your creativity to show up. Creative Rest lets you focus on your basic need for wonder.” It “involves giving your mind a deliberate break to allow your creativity to regenerate.”
While Dalton-Smith’s ideas for Creative Rest do not include knee surgery, she does suggest things like enjoying coffee in a new location, spending time in a museum, or people-watching in a park — places where you can let “your mind wander off-leash for a while.”
Creative Rest is a place of wondering, wandering, and waiting.
Which reminds me of a poem I wrote several years ago while waiting for a friend to arrive at the train station. Called “Places of Waiting” (see below), it talks about the fertility of waiting, the possibility contained in nothingness, and the expansive nature of these life pauses.
Summer is filled with opportunities for pauses, like a moment in the garden or a walk along the beach. Remember to allow time for waiting — and rest — in between all the busy-ness.
Happy Summer!
Love, Jen
Places of Waiting
I love these places of waiting this quiet axis of the world a point around which things spin he on his way there and she on hers there they, together, embrace and part or run, race, return and I, here, silent silent and of no consequence to their what-comes-next nor to my own, really I am here-and-now, a great pause a smudge of time a nothingness into which pours everything peace, poetry, god
EXPLORATIONS
One of my favorite things about putting together Creatively Speaking is the wandering exploration of topics and things to share with you, like…
Joshua Kissi, who insists on “telling stories by any medium necessary.” Kissi is a Ghanaian-American creative entrepreneur specializing in photography and filmmaking, based in New York City. To see his work, visit www.joshuakissi.com.
Questlove is a culinary entrepreneur, a New York Times best-selling author, and a musician, who you might know from the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. He’s the author of the book Creative Quest — “a must-read guide for all creatives” — which I just borrowed from my local library. For more, visit questlove.com.
Digging deeper into the concept of creative resets, I discovered Sacred Rest, the Saundra Dalton-Smith book I mentioned above. She is a physician, a work-life integration researcher, and the founder of Restorasis, a professional development agency dedicated to restoring well-being in the workplace. In addition to the book, you can sign up for a free Sacred Rest Challenge with daily prompts and suggestions for finding rest.
I love the painting at the beginning of this issue of Creative Speaking: The Moonlight Bed, by Jacek Yerka. Yerka is a surrealist painter from Poland. His work, which you can see on his website yerkaland.com, is other-worldly.
The robin ahead on the trail dappled in sunlight looks to me like a gnome, and I pause, remembering the time a gnome came to me in a tent while my family slept, and I want to believe for just a moment that somewhere in this wicked world there’s still magic like that — still gnomes and fairies, still hope and things we can believe in — then just like that, the robin flies off deep into the woods of this last protected space, and I think it’s magic just the same.
At night, while we dream I climb up and into the flowering tree to tuck in the fledglings before they tumble, sing soft lullabies while the Mom sleeps, caution them stay east of the hedge and if they must fly high and up no matter the bee-line temptations, watch the rain and the wind and the random cat and I, my darlings, will watch you like a prayer.
Tonight, by the quarter moon, I will visit the Pemigewasset lie down my tired bones let notch waters churn run the course of my body pin me to the smooth roundness upon which I rest until neither of us notice the stranger’s stillness how all that seemed out of place once was, once wanted is no longer anything but this river flowing.
The moon said Get Up! And while the cat and cardinal insisted I had some purpose for the day, I was not convinced.
I AM not convinced.
This slow and useless plodding on floorboards that hold now nearly 30 years of footsteps seems circuitous.
I can, of course, enumerate — if you were to ask — point out the notches and plaques, consider the possible one heart, one life, one pain but those are slow to come at 4 when the soft known comfort of sheets and dreams seems the best I can hope for these days, when even footsteps have become formidable.
I wake up with a start realize that I am, myself, the April fool still thinking I have control (or hope) of making it out alive all these years swimming against a tide tilting at windmills chasing wild geese pushing boulders up hills when in reality I am just the monster at the end of the book silly old silly, old me
One coyote howl wakes us at 4 and we both, the cat and I, move around blankets and curtains hoping to see the creature cross the road ask each other why? and for what purpose? laugh at our inside joke before falling back into dreams neither one of us can translate — coyotes and gunman, snap traps and mice, the violent world outside.
I’m dreaming about the man in the field its autumn backdrop oddly out of place with the spring cacophony that filters through my nighttime window; he’s talking about collective trauma — the seeping-in of our wild world on jet streams and ethernets on brainwaves and internets — a scrolling litany of the everything we were not built to absorb and the everything against which we are powerless; a continental, monumental shift beneath our feet in a landslide brought me down epic crescendo sort of way I’m sure Stevie never imagined.
It is No Kings in March and a one-man King Lear opines from a makeshift stage in a Union building on the bank of a river; he is boisterous and profound, a shapeshifter come to teach us again about the failings of ego and power here in this space that smells of picket signs and hard-won fights, placards of victory line the walls while outside, the wind has changed as bodies are counted to move the scale of battle more.
I can’t keep throwing books out just because I’ve lost patience with words, even the ones meant to console my wintering spirit; there is little consolation these days where hope is a burden of expectations I want to stab violently with a fork that instead finds its way into another slice of cake I keep hidden beneath my bed, its sweet, sweet comfort savored between the puzzle of dreams that have so many layers, and so many meanings, one might think I was fucking Jung, a rabid affair that keeps me trapped in this godforsaken space analyzing and processing analyzing and processing analyzing and processing still here again always… a bonfire stack of books by the door my Plan B should the promises keep failing.
“I don’t believe in much anymore,” singer/songwriter Spencer LaJoye says on their website, “except a little bit of everything. And you. And me. And that art can change the world simply by making us feel something.”
And feel something I did, last night while watching the Stillwater, Minnesota Trinity Lutheran Church Choir, above, sing LaJoye’s song Plowshare Prayer.
Fair warning, it might “break you open” as LaJoye writes. And maybe that’s just what we need?
Dear blessed creator, dear mother, dear savior Dear father, dear brother, dear holy other Dear sibling, dear baby, dear patiently waiting Dear sad and confused, dear stuck and abused
[Verse 2] Dear end of your rope, dear worn out and broke Dear go it alone, dear running from home Dear righteously angry, forsaken by family Dear jaded and quiet, dear tough and defiant
[Chorus] I pray that I’m heard And I pray that this works I pray if a prayer has been used as a sword Against you and your heart Against you and your word I pray that this prayеr is a plowshare of sorts
[Bridge] That it might break you open It might hеlp you grow I pray that your body gets all that it needs And if you don’t want healing I just pray for peace I pray that your burden gets lighter each day I pray the mean voice in your head goes away I pray that you honor the grief as it comes I pray you can feel all the life in your lungs I pray that if you go all day being brave That you can go home, go to bed Feeling safe I pray you’re forgiven. I pray you forgive I pray you set boundaries and openly live I pray that you feel you are worth never leaving I pray that you know I will always believe you
[Chorus] I pray that you’re heard And I pray that this works
[Verse 3] Amen on behalf of the last and the least On behalf of the anxious, depressed and unseen Amen for the workers, the hungry, the houseless Amen for the lonely and recently spouseless
[Verse 4] Amen for the queers and their closeted peers Amen for the bullied who hold in their tears Amen for the mothers of little black sons Amen for the kids who grow up scared of guns
[Verse 5] Amen for the addicts, ashamed and hungover Amen for the calloused, the wisened, the sober Amen for ones who want life to be over Amen for the leaders who lose their composure
[Verse 6] And amen for the parents who just lost their baby Amen for chronically ill and disabled Amen for the children down at the border Amen for the victims of our law and order
[Chorus] I pray that you’re heard And I pray that this works I pray if a prayer has been used as a sword Against you and your heart Against you and your word I pray that this prayer is a plowshare of sorts
Spencer LaJoye is a singer/songwriter from the Midwest who makes charming and emotional folk music. Visit their website to learn more about their bio, tour, music, videos, press, and how to support them on Patreon.
Words and Music by Spencer LaJoye. Choral Arrangement – Phil Kadidlo. Soloist – Robin Cain. Trinity Choir – Trinity Lutheran Church, Stillwater, MN. Piano – Phil Kadidlo. Conductor – Clark Weyrauch.
Today marks the 16-year anniversary of Random Acts of Writing!
You may have noticed it’s been a little more random than usual — in terms of content as well as frequency.
As a creative spirit here in the 2020s, it’s hard not to be random, waxing poetic one moment and beating the drums of resistance the next.
And while I wrestle with possible reinventions and reincarnations of the sweet and ever-present landing spot of this blog, I can’t help but wonder if being random — bobbing and weaving with the times — isn’t exactly where this is supposed to be. For now.
Thank you for following along, still, after all these years, come what may.
Earlier this year, 95 poets were selected to randomly exchange their poetry books with other participants. As part of the exchange, I received a copy of Atmosphere by Michael Friedman — a collection of poems that explores the elusiveness of death and loss to the living and the interplay of ritual, science, and spirituality.
And a copy of Sleeping with Ghosts was sent to Kendall A. Bell, whose book The Contortionist, was also included in the exchange. Her book, which was sent to one of the other 95 poets, includes 16 poems inspired by the album “Portals” by Melanie Martinez.
Huge shout-out to Rick Lupert at Poetry Super Highway for including me in this project! You can see more of his work on his website here.
When I was in grade school, I used to tell a silly story that went something like…
Once upon a time, there was a little universe. And in that universe, there was a little solar system. And in that solar system, there was a little planet. And on that planet, there was a little continent. And on that continent…
The story — which I could see in my mind — got closer and closer, periscoping in on a little house and maybe a little family or a little girl. I don’t remember the ending, if there even was one.
I found myself thinking about that as I was careening up I-95 for what creativity guru Julie Cameron might call an Artist Date.
“An artist date is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist. In its most primary form, the artist date is an excursion, a play date that you preplan and defend against all interlopers. You do not take anyone on this artist date but you and your inner artist, a.k.a. your creative child. That means no lovers, friends, spouses, children – no taggers-on of any stripe.”1
It was my first solo adventure since my knee replacement surgery four months ago, and I suspect I was breaking Artist Date rules. First of all, I was rushing to get there. It felt more like an errand run or a have-to-do than a creative outing.
Second, there were all sorts of interlopers — the client with erupting mental health issues, the pedophile president, the elementary schoolgirls bombed in Iran, the words of John Lennon — going round and round in my head.
Nonetheless, I kept driving, thinking about the little universe and all of its big problems on my way to the Guilford Art Center, which was hosting an exhibit called, ironically, CIRCULAR THINKING.
CIRCULAR THINKING, featuring fiber art created by the Studio Art Quilt Associates, was “designed to explore the varieties of meanings, images, and experiences evoked by the circle…a shape, a symbol, a concept, or a metaphor.”2 The exhibit had been on view since the beginning of the month, and I was happy to slip into the colorful space on its last day.
So much color that I thought, for a moment, I might escape our little world and lose my interlopers all-together.
But there was a shadow of RFK across Hope Barton’s quilt Why We Need Vaccines; Lynne Allen and Cassandra Allen mentioned Endless Conflict, and Martha Wolf asked me to read between the lines of A Newspaper to see the loss of our black and white reality.
Why We Need Vaccines, Hope Barton
Endless Conflict, Lynne Allen and Cassandra Allen
A Newspaper, Martha Wolf
I was buzzing. Hurried. Preoccupied. Definitely not of a “date” mindset. But then a bright bold sun called out and Catherine Lavoie’s piece called Shattered explained…
“Red slashes represent that moment when you finally admit your life is shattered and you need to make changes. The golden background fabric represents the glow of Hope that you can do this.”
Then Rita Hannafin’s sparkling quilt reminded me that We Are Stardust, “part of the swirling, timeless energy that continues life.”
And slowly, slowly, slowly, I started to come back to myself. Settle in. A little.
Shattered, Catherine Lavoie
We Are Stardust, Rita Hannafin
I wandered through the rest of the gorgeous exhibit, browsed the amazing collection of gifts in The Shop — oh my! — then headed on to my next stop, City Gallery in New Haven.
City Gallery was hosting painter Beatriz Olson and her solo exhibit UNMUTED: THE RETURN OF COLOR, “a body of work that traces her journey back to voice, embodiment, and the full spectrum of color that once lay quiet beneath the demands of culture, profession, and expectation.”3
Beatriz is an expressive artist, whose work “involves holistic approaches to healing the body mind and soul distress by using color, form and lack thereof to process emotions.”
Serendipitously, she was gallery sitting for the afternoon, so not only did I get a personal tour of the exhibit, I had the chance to talk with Beatriz about her work and the stories behind the paintings, including The Great Mother and Courage.
The Great Mother, Uncomfortable Truths, Ubabashed – Beatriz Olson
Courage, Beatriz Olson
(We also talked about knees — she’s a doctor and her husband is an Orthopedic Surgeon — and books. As a matter of fact, we’re exchanging books — a copy of my Sleeping with Ghosts for a copy of her Mind Body Secrets that I can’t wait to read!)
Women’s Voyage to Freedom
Perhaps my favorite piece in her show was Women’s Voyage to Freedom, hanging prominently on the back wall of the gallery. Its bold colors and gold accents tell the story of women coming into their own in this world — moving from what we’re taught, to what we learn, to how we emerge, flourish, and create our own stories.
Noticing the little Universe in the upper corners of the painting, it felt as if the Artist Date had come full circle. And, in a way, so had I — returning to the curious and mobile spirit who is more than ready to get back to living a creative life!
Detail, Women’s Voyage to Freedom
[1] Cameron, Julia. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. United States: Penguin Publishing Group, 2002.
John Lennon sang about peace when I was only 5 but then he was shot in the back four times, a few years later imagine. we all kept singing though even after that gave the peace sign to each other in a wink-wink someday sort of way like we were in on a big secret; it was coming, any day now, 2,000 years of peacemakers and peace preachers had told us so before they were killed, too, point-blank or otherwise; told us, told our parents, told their parents who kissed in the streets when John Lennon was all but 5 imagine. and so it goes, peace dream pipe dream pish posh.
When the painter on stilts calls to me from above to talk about color and time, I hear only the whisper of a lover past, blue eyes and soft curls his warm brown skin against mine practicing words out loud as we drank spiced rum from paper cups, pointed to constellations laid out on the ceiling tu nombre es mi cielo, mi amor your name is my heaven, my love
Jess Craven posted this on her Substack CHOP WOOD, CARRY WATER yesterday, and I wanted to share it with you. I imagine, if you’re here reading this, you already know the ways you connect with your “green dog.” This is a reminder of how very important that is, now more than ever.
“There’s a thing they talk about in recovery circles—I call it the parable of the red dog and the green dog*. It’s simple, and goes like this: We each have two dogs inside of us, a red one and a green one. The red dog is all of our dark impulses—self-hatred, fear, addiction, anger, isolation, etc. The [green] dog is our “light” impulses—love, connection, honesty, sobriety, and the like.
The two dogs are in constant battle. So what determines which one wins?
It comes down to which one we feed.
Our country is having its own red dog and green dog moment. We have a red dog that is fear, exploitation, greed, racism, hate, dictatorship. We have a green dog that is love, justice, tolerance, empathy, community, democracy. Both dogs are extremely powerful. They have battled for the duration of our country’s existence. That battle has now grown internecine—perhaps it always was.
So which dog will win?
Again, the one we feed.
That’s why I look at this work not so much as fighting the “bad guys” as helping the good ones. I try not to fight the red dog. Because doing so, in many ways, helps it, not me.
Instead I just feed the green one. Because doing so helps it and me.
That’s what our actions here are about. Feeding the proverbial green dog. It’s how we sustain this work, but it’s also how we win. And, ironically, how we care for ourselves!
So when things get overwhelming, when it seems impossible to track the plethora of evils we face, when hate seems to have taken a million forms, I quiet my mind and focus my purpose by remembering “that’s the red dog. What can I do for the green one?”
Friends, the green dog is better fed than ever these days. It is thriving. So instead of worrying about every instance of evil coming out of this administration, let’s channel our righteous energies towards growing love. Growing justice. Growing tolerance. Growing empathy. Growing community. Growing democracy. There are literally countless ways we can do these things. All of us can find a few that work for us.
And that’s a great thing. Because the more these things grow, the more our opponents will wither, falter, and fail.
It may seem counterintuitive, but this approach works—I have lived experience to prove it, and I’m not alone. Best of all, it strengthens us. Because it turns out feeding the green dog also feeds us.”
So tell me, how are you feeding the green dog today? Comment below.
ARTWORK: Keith Haring Pop Shop Dogs
*I only found references to a Red Dog/Blue Dog recovery technique, and someone in Jess’ comments mentioned that this approach is originally a native Cherokee parable about two wolves (see more). Either way, you get the point. I hope.
Please follow and support Jess’ CHOP WOOD, CARRY WATER. She is a beacon of light and action in this dark world.Click here.
I can’t seem to get my coffee right it’s too strong or too weak burnt because I forget half-brewed because I’m impatient and none of it tastes as good as a hot cup on a cold morning when I was young and hopeful — romantic even; somehow everything now in this wicked, hobbled world is just not right, and I wonder if whiskey might better suit the mood, neat with a long, hard drag off a Marlboro might at least allow an exhale now and then.
wondering if the surgeon replaced the poem lobe with mechanical parts as well the kind that seize up in cold work or don’t work at a whim inflame from lack of use or too much use or just so much use that whatever — ow! it seems the poemflow is missing its synovial fluid like my knee that I must pump back and forth swinging (without the whee!) until it decides to perform; perhaps I must swing my head shake it no nod it yes agree to some higher power to let the poem in YES. NOW. PLEASE. It’s been sitting there for a week waiting to move waiting to become waiting to transform waiting like me waiting
In the Library of Dreams a Poet stood at the front of a room lit only by amber candles dressed in velvet robes and a crown of laurel befitting the most seasoned bards, a hint of a smile lifted on his face familiar as he pulled from his pocket a round red ruby and a sparkling white crystal explained to all of us about life and death the immortality of words tells us we are given crystals two apiece at birth red like an apple for life and living white for the wisdom of sages like himself a wizard of words enchanter of stories sorcerer of time.
The warmed blanket offers as much comfort as the ghost who held me in dreams said all the right things too late to even consider a new lease fucking cliché at this age find myself wishing I were the type to waste away in bed where dreams at least offer promise.
Having heard the phrase “pandemic purchase” three separate times recently, I was inspired to create an issue of MANIFEST (zine) about just that — those random, weird, or wild items we purchased during the pandemic, remember? I hope you enjoy this eclectic assortment of Pandemic Purchases as shared by some of our regular readers and subscribers in issue #18. Guest contributors include Lara Alves, Ken Bausert, Anne Coffey, Ted Ficklen, Allison Maltese, Silvery Nyx, Mary O’Connor, Sally Rieger, and Nina Zina.
This issue has been printed and mailed thanks to the generous support of readers. I’m hoping to continue publishing MANIFEST (zine) through 2026, but could use your help. Please click here for more information.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
As one ghost lies dying from heart ache, another suffers tragic loss, and a third fades quietly into the ether, she is reminded that always, in the epic final battle, everything resurfaces: there are fires burning, smoldering moments of despair, a defeated arch nemesis, a warrior waning and
AND
a heroine — walking wounded — considering the sunrise its event horizon the point of no return from all of this and all of them these lost souls her poetic impetus
By the time I can walk freely to the backyard again, my summer friends have flown, their brightness replaced by soft subtle grays, and I can’t help but wonder about the cardinal, her wing askew, who spent the season managing her brokeness as deftly as I navigated my own; she moved about as best as she could, stayed strong; found her stride and her song. I miss her now, these cold mornings more quiet without our shared infirmary, and I imagine her somewhere safe, like myself, moving without limit.
*As if on cue, I saw my cardinal friend in the backyard just this morning, the first time in a month!
Do the birds know I am not myself moving gently towards them seeds in one pocket water in the other barefoot in the cool, damp grass tticking to call the cardinals tticking to say I have not forgotten you I have been here all along just moving more slowly finding my way to solid ground done with the flitterings of grief and old limitations — so what of loss? these leaves had to fall it is the natural order churning and churning everything changing the leaves, the river, and time tticking too
The 8″ battle scar explains the retreat in glorious, punctuated detail so no apologies or all apologies for having been absent from duty absent from craft absent from self our tactical strategy required split-second timing a vanguard deployment of the strongest self armed and ready for the battle of chemical warfare and severed skin, of breaking bones and hammered metals; while the correspondent self held the flank, taking cryptic notes to send by wire later, when the haze cleared.
a poem inspired by Stranger Things, post-op drugs, and him again
The meditation takes me to the Upside Down — a crossover of dreams and Spielberg memories, where muses suddenly appear with the Next Great Idea! on a dark plane of black water, the beaming light of What Comes After This; but he is there, too, and I say the goodbye I never get to say except in dreams and poems I want to fold up and leave in secret places, like the Upside Down, where maybe he travels sometimes, this kindred spirit who is so familiar I am always certain we have crossed paths in some other life… or is that just this rich, deep darkness of conjuring? the magic of a poet turning things over to see what might be, maybe, substance for another poem?
A bird in the privet suddenly sings and without evidence of prey I can only surmise that she is dreaming. It’s a morning for dreaming, crisp-cold and clear, the moon and Jupiter still dance while constellations shimmer to the rhythm and she is singing in her sleep, a sweet but startled sound as if she feels our spinning, senses the sun’s fast approach wishes for one more hour of peace before the day begins.
It’s 9 o’clock my time barely three for you but it’s no matter we’re decades apart — not hours — only ghosts here in the library where I race to find the book I need you to read before the alarm goes off and I wake to the day where it’s just a fine gold thread that connects us now.
I pass long tall stacks of coffee table books and the bust of Blackstone in the halls of recorded memory — yours and mine — and you seem not to notice the immediacy of the moment when I approach with insistence, your retired posture almost welcome were it not for the clock ticking next to me in the bed we used to share,
but by then the words have disappeared from the pages in your lap and in exchange, a collage of nonsensical images fall to the ground at your feet rendering me speechless in that dreamworld way, paralyzed by all I have left to say, gasping for moonlit breaths.
In the dark you whisper your worst fears made manifest by explosive lights and sounds you conjure in the woods outside our room, specters stretched tall along walls the shadow of what comes, but I am not afraid of your ghosts nor you of mine — we’ve never been — it is why we find ourselves here again partners in crimes of comfort and concoctions; I leave my dreams to curl into yours, stroke the broad arm of your embrace, lie in the darkness of silent understanding, this midnight love come round, the long wide bed, moonlight and stars our afterlife dreams.
Resisting the urge (for the seventh or eighth time in two days) to hoist the parking lot flag back up to full mast in some alter-ego Fuck Donald Trump ninja subterfuge, I remind myself to breathe in the gorgeous late summer afternoon there in the shadow of Ikea — monument of consumerism — gorgeous, except for the Spotted Lanternfly that crosses my path begging me to squash its red polka-dotted guts out; more death on these days of infinite death I cannot bear; it might be feast for the songbird trapped in the cafeteria throwing itself again and again and again against the ceiling-high windows, their pretense of sky; it does not stop seeking what it remembers, the poor thing, but is that Futility or Hope I wonder as I read signs about food waste and recycling, the 3,920 solar panels on the roof above my head, feast on Swedish meatballs covered in slick red jam.
You are legend suddenly made flesh but no comparison to the mythology I have constructed for you. its scaffolding felled akimbo by your presence, poetry strewn in incomplete sentences across the timeline; mere mortals are not made for this; we fail by our very nature, destroy the sacred altars of memory, light fires to its sweetness, and burn down walls of forgetfulness; best put you back in the box, close the lid tightly before even Hope escapes the happy ending I wrote on our behalf
Maybe it was the full moon or just the occurrence of these days of ending things crashing around us the long slow molting I want you to know I tell him in case I die… but I am no longer sure if that was real or something I said to a ghost
They all come to visit lately by happenstance or dream by the cosmic dust that connects all of us or through airwaves as cluttered as our atmosphere
Last night I walked with one — a ghost — along a woods road up into a wide field of apple trees and goldenrod laughing like old friends
And it was so good to see him again that I burrowed back into sleep in case he was still there waiting
Sometimes when they hover like this converge in dream spaces whisper in dark corners I think I must be dying And this is our mea culpa our chance to set things right finally or again
I never could see it in myself, that origami fold of accommodation, beautiful in its grace and considerations, but the creases wear thin after a while;
I see it in her, this kindred spirit across from me; offer silent permission with a glance and watch as she unfolds just a little, reconfigures her angles to her own liking, sets things right, sets things free.
At 6:15 this morning I had the thought I should drive to Pennsylvania. Sit at my father’s graveside for a while. Talk about all of the things that have changed in the 30 years since we buried him there, the all of us still in shock about the accident, the sudden death, the things we’d left unsaid.
Thirty years is a long time — almost half my life now — there would be a lot to say.
I hadn’t thought of a cemetery visit, made a plan. The grief is so subtle now, with no demands for place and time. It comes as it will come, whether I am sitting there among rows of stones, or sitting in the woods communing with the spirit of everything.
So that was my choice — the spirit of everything in the woods early this morning, and I was happy for the solitude, the Sunday morning quiet.
While I hoped for a sign — he often appears as Hawk — or a voice on the wind, what I found was gratitude.
A deep and unyielding gratitude for how very well he raised me, how strong he taught me to be; for his laugh and the stick-with-it, positive way he approached life; for his encouragement to dream big and love big.
My favorite story about my Dad was the time he took me sledding when I was about four-and-a-half. He set me up on the sled at the top of a rather large hill and reminded me to steer left when I got to the tree. But I got my left and right mixed up and hit the tree straight on — requiring a race to the emergency room and ten stitches. A few weeks later, he brought me back to that hill and told me to open the glove compartment. Inside was the bloody rag he’d held to my forehead — it was a no-pain-no-gain moment. Then he made get on the sled and go back down the hill because…“When you fall off the horse, you get right back on.”
These days we call that tenacity, perseverance, courage, strength, resilience — all of the things that got 29-year-old me standing graveside to this version of me now. I like to think he’d be really proud.
I stayed too long in dreams so much the day seems flat and one dimension; in my mind, the sander still polishes the leg of the man who said “the body always feels pain” as sawdust coats my throat too much for words; a crystal-blue rain falls with wicked gold lightening against the wide horizon somewhere along I-90 in South Dakota, an angel floating in the back seat laughs at what we forgot to say, urges me to Drive! Drive! Drive! as if I am escaping something; all the while my mind ticks, like a clock pacing time, thinking how to slip you a note handwritten that says 808.81 and nothing more, you’re the Sherlock Holmes, you figure it out; all these years, the conversations in my head and you, deaf and blind or just resigned to dreams like me, this morning, wasting days away before the knives cut out pieces of me again, remember? Like the last time you were here, the both of us relieved to hear “she made it.”
The friend who found me after I lost you died and so I lost her, too
there’s a long list of others lost for various reasons since then
by default by accident by misfortune or miscalculation or by the eventuality that all things change and nothing is certain
certainly not love I’ve lost that, too, too many times
so many times I’ve stopped counting one, two, three… out loud anyway
do you ever wonder why we find them again? in hallways of dreams, in lobbies of random buildings doors opening and closing and time passing on all sides everywhere except where you stand momentarily lost and found and lost again
there will always be more to say a one thing I didn’t mention a question I needed to ask a reassurance or gratitude or words I never, ever spoke out loud a messy, beautiful bouquet things I’ve gathered for the next time we meet by chance or happenstance petals dropping even as I walk away a meadow of words at my feet forget-me-not nor I you, ever
AN INTIMATE EXPLORATION OF LOVE, MEMORY, AND MEANING
Known for her meditations and musings about our outside world, Connecticut writer Jen Payne takes readers inside this time…into the heart and mind of a poet, where memories wander, hearts break, and ghosts appear in dreams. Those ghosts — her lovers, soulmates, and muses — reveal themselves slowly, one at a time, in this wistfully reflective, time-traveling memoir.
His smile was Errol Flynn from the get-go, and he made no apologies for the affect — the tight jeans and cowboy boots, the crisp white t-shirt sleeves rolled, suntanned arms, the hair done up and over, the cologne as alluring as the charm he used to catch your attention. And once he had it, he’d reel you in slow and steady, until you would agree to anything everything and never look back, not even now, all these years later, where he remains as legendary as he was those first early days when you rode the high seas together, stared up at the wild stars and knew you would never ever forget.
I remember with much fondness my local library’s summer reading programs. There was a large bulletin board with a hand-drawn map or roadway, and construction paper vehicles that we could move forward depending on how many books we had read.
Even now, I have a deep sweet memory of the summers when I was 11, 12, 13: riding my bike downtown, getting ice cream at the docks, and cooling off in the library lobby, before climbing the steps to the Children’s Room presided over by Mrs. Mays.
Thank you Maribeth Breen, Henry Carter Hull Library, for these photos of Lynnabeth Mays.
Those were the years of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, and authors like Judy Blume, Roald Dahl, and Beverly Cleary. Back then, all the magic of the world was held within the pages of their books!
This could explain my penchant for all things fiction, especially in the summer, when my To Be Read (TBR) list still includes magical realism, fantasy, and young adult novels.
Speaking of TBR lists, earlier this year — in an effort to stop feeding the Amazon machine — I switched from Goodreads to StoryGraph to keep track of my reads and want-to-reads. It’s a nice, easy-to-use application that even has an annual reading challenge, which I’ve been doing on Goodreads since 2013 — old habits die hard, Mrs. Mays.
Have you heard of StoryGraph? Its a social cataloguing web platform for books that includes book profiles, reviews, and reader data. It was created by British software engineer Nadia Odunayo in 2019. Odunayo is kind of a rock star really, as StoryGraph currently has more than 3.5 million users! Watch an interview with her on the Today show, or sign up for StoryGraph here.
I’d share a link to my current StoryGraph Reading Challenge page, but I’m afraid I am woefully behind in my reading this year. Thirteen books behind, to be precise, and I doubt I’ll catch up. I blame it on 2025, which is giving wicked 2020 vibes, and my focus is following suit.
While my Books I’ve Read list is relatively short for the year, my TBR List keeps growing and growing. It’s at 526 books right now, which is 17 years’ worth of reading at my current pace.
I’m trying to weed out some of the older listings, like the dozen or so books I added in 2020 while researching how to become a hermit. A lot of those 526 are out-of-print, or notes to self, or other books by my favorite authors. Some come from reading quizzes that add “should books” to the list — as in “someday I really should read In Search of Lost Time” or “I really should read some Jane Austen.”
Try your hand at one of these quizzes and see how many books you add to your TBR list!
As for my own Summer Reading, I have a short stack of books in my literal TBR pile: The Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells, The Staircase in the Woods, Chuck Wendig, Wake the Wild Creatures, Nova Ren Suma, Life Hacks for a Little Alien, Alice Franklin, The Postcard, Anne Berest, and Poetry Will Save Your Life, Jill Bialosky.
What’s on your TBR pile this summer?
If you are in need of things to do, especially on the steamier days, stop by your local library. Many of them have summer reading programs for grown-ups as well as kids!
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The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
For more than 20 years, I have hiked at a nature preserve here in my town. Its criss-crossing trails allow for easy walks around a pond and through the forest, and its 800 acres of open space provide for quiet contemplation, easy escape, and frequent inspiration.
This was the place that inspired my very early nature writing which became my first book Look Up!Musing on the Nature of Mindfulness. And it sparked a re-connection with being out in nature, and a feeling of companionship with it and its creatures that has fed my writing ever since.
It’s fed my spirit, too. It’s where I meditate, where I talk to god. On peaceful, early morning walks, I often find myself in quiet conversation with kindred spirits like Henry David Thoreau, Mary Oliver, and Emily Dickinson.
On a recent walk, I found myself thinking about Sue Holloway. Sue was a woman of the woods and a poet, too. She loved swans and butterflies. And she spent countless hours along the trails at the same nature preserve.
Sue was an adjunct professor in Ecofeminist Writing at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, Connecticut. She was a member of the Swan Society and the Orion Grassroots Network.
Sue wrote a “Back to Earth” column for four Connecticut newspapers, and a “Woman with Spirit” column for Woman Magazine. Her editorials, photo features, articles, and poetry appeared in numerous publications, newspapers, and anthologies including Heart Beat of New England: An Anthology of Contemporary Nature Poetry. Sue published several books as well: A Community of Young Poets, Artemis’ Arrow, and Swan in the Grail.
Her writing, as noted by one online biography, “traced themes of human intimacy and subjectivity with the rest of creation. Her intent was to promote affiliation, compassion, tolerance, and peace among people and among humans and creatures.”
Thomas Berry, the renowned visionary thinker who explored humanity’s relationship to the earth and the universe, said of Sue: “It’s such a joy to come across someone who understands…The creatures in the surrounding world are all gracious companions on our great journey.”
She understood that deeply, as shown not only in her teaching and her writing, but in her actions, as well.
When a local conservation group organized a controlled burn of a meadow to thwart invasive weeds, despite the presence of animals, birds, and insects, Sue passionately resigned from its board, terminated her membership, and never looked back.
I was considering Sue Holloway and her enthusiastic stance recently, as I drove into the preserve I have considered sacred space all these years. There, along a pristine arc of the pond, a new gravel path had been bulldozed into place. A quarter mile of stone and boulder stanchions in the shadowy overlook where turtles once laid eggs and herons would land to rest.
As I walked the familiar paths that morning — the words of a scathing protest letter forming in my mind, ideas for a clandestine remediation — I thought about Sue and what she might think about the new walkway. I wondered what she should think about all of the changes in this special place where we both found solace.
What would she think of the increase in visitors who leave behind trash and bags full of dog poop, who hang Christmas decorations in the woods and tuck painted rocks into nooks and crannies, who toss food waste and rotting piles of birdseed along the trail?
What would she think of the infrastructure needed to support the increase in traffic — the fabricated bridges in place of stepping stones and corduroy roads, the bulldozed woods road now 10 feet wide, the loose gravel tossed liberally atop muddy patches, the multitude of trail blazes hammered deep into bark?
How would she feel walking the trails forever changed by the microburst that destroyed the forest canopy, the rocky arid paths, the increase of invasive plants? The stark evidence of climate change, the insects and tree diseases?
As I walked, I wondered what protest could be loud enough for all of that? What words, what actions, what effort could ever, ever turn the tide?
“I urge each reader to make an informed choice about the destiny of these creatures, for it also defines ourselves.” — Sue Holloway
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.” — Matthew 7:12 (NOAB)
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Sue Holloway’s book Swan in the Grail can be borrowed from the Blackstone Memorial Library in Branford and found online to purchase. Many of her photographs can be found on the website All Creatures. Here are links to some of her articles:
I love these and wanted to share with you! Click here to learn more. You can also download a poster and workbooks perfect for classrooms or the young children in your life.
WHAT ARE YOU SEEING? In today’s world, this question takes on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it? What are we seeing? What is real and what is imagined? How is my subjective response relevant to the collective real and important conversations?
It’s critical, now more than ever, to validate what is real and to identify our selective responses. In this issue of Manifest (zine), you’ll find several images of artwork, each followed by an ekphrastic poem that responds to the art.
The zine is arranged in such a way that you are asked to see the REAL artwork, and then turn the page to read a SUBJECTIVE response. In doing so, hopefully, you’ll come to understand that for every YOU looking at the world one way, there is a ME seeing it completely differently.
Featuring writings by Jen Payne, and artwork reprinted with permission by Jennifer Flint, Lisa Wolkow, Susan Doolittle, Linda Edwards, LeBrie Rich, Collier and Kim Hahn, and Frank X. Tolbert 2; as well as older works by C. Allen Gilbert, Joseph Beuys, and W. E. Hill.
24-page, Full Color 4.75″ square booklet and a curated Spotify playlist. Cost: $8.00.
This issue has been printed and mailed thanks to the generous support of readers. I’m hoping to continue publishing MANIFEST (zine) through 2026, but could use your help. Please click here for more information.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
The sweet honeysuckle breeze is small consolation, brief relief from the headlines of heat waves and hatred. I set off to the woods this morning looking for some kind of solace or peace. But honestly? While my mother threatens to live another four years, I’m wondering if I have to. Everywhere I turn there are disappointments and discouragements, humans making inroads where they do not belong, humans caught where others say they shouldn’t be, humans being…human. I am the generation of John Lennon’s Imagine. Peace signs and hippie hope. But hate comes around again, and again. And again. As if hope and peace are delusions, the dream from which we wake to these long and painful days. I used to think myself the happy one, the silly one casting light into darkness. La La La. But my ninja thoughts tell me otherwise, and I spend my walk wondering about the energetic force necessary to uproot infrastructures.
Last week, in one of those wonderful moments of happenstance, I met a local woman who — we discovered while discussing her photography work — was raised in the same town as my mom and dad. We got to talking about what it was like growing up there, how you really are made up of where you come from, and how the language of the place filters into conversations like ours and defines things without elaboration.
I wasn’t born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania — but my entire family was — my mom’s family and all of Dad’s, uncles and aunts, cousins. My parents, decades after moving to Connecticut, still called it Home, and for me, sometimes, it feels that way, too. As a child, we spent holidays and summers in Bethlehem, attended family weddings and funerals. Still, today, I can drive around the city without getting lost, find my way back to my grandparents’ houses, the cemeteries, the church where I was baptized and my parents were married.
So I knew, immediately, the location of the photographs in this local woman’s portfolio. The view from the Southside that Walker Evans immortalized (above), the Kraken-like spires of the steel mill rising from the shore of the Lehigh River, the stories-high windows through which I used to watch molten steel flicker and pour as we drove through town.
Like my client, I have always been fascinated by the steel mill. It holds its place in my mind as the beating heart of the city, with its pulsing engines and machines. It was the center through which everything moved: the trains that woke me up at night, my grandfathers working night shifts, my grandmothers keeping house in the shadows of industry, the smell of iron ore on their skin.
If you have been there or lived there, you know that smell. You know the feel of Steel City, its rough-around-the-edges energy and patchwork culture of blue collar workers, religious sects, and immigrants. You know the hills of Southside, the porch-lit Moravian Stars, and you can see the famous steel stacks along the skyline. You see them, even now, as ghosts keeping watch over the casinos and concert venues, the museum dedicated to the long-gone industry that made its city famous.
The woman I met, Linda Cummings, is an artist-photographer with an incredible catalog of work. You can see her collection of Bethlehem, PA images on her website. They’re part of a larger collection of work called Slippages that will be featured in her new book of the same name.
randomactsofwriting.net 