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I wake up around 6:15 and pull one of the slats in the blinds up so that I can peek through and see what kind of day it will be. I get dressed and go downstairs, slide open the dining room door, and there sits Winnie, tail wagging, ready for the day.

It’s strange to think that when I took my dog out a few short months ago, the morning was dark and so cold my hands went numb if I didn’t wear gloves. Back then, I would watch the sun rising over the Queen Street garage, peeking around the two story houses on Frederick Street. Now when I take Winnie out in the morning, the sun is up, the sky firmly bright, the air warm and humid from the night’s rain. The alley is gray but when I get to the grassy square, the sky opens up into clouds and an impossible blue.

It is easy to extoll the beauty of the mountainside or the trail through the woods or the way the water fades on the beach as the tide slips, but there is beauty here in the city, too, if you know where to look. There is the mother sitting on the stoop, drinking coffee, her small children drawing on the sidewalk with chalk. There is the man shouting across the street to his friend, ignoring the cars that drive between them. There is the rabbit that races along the chain link fence, disappearing through the hole in the curb.

* * * * *

We sit in the open green and the boys play flag football. Poppy is not old enough yet or she would be out there, too, so I throw football with her off to the side, each catch a celebration, even the ones that first hit her in the nose. She runs and runs and I remember that feeling, as a kid, running so fast I thought I just might be able to fly.

I sit in the chair and Poppy makes her way around the expanse of green, picking dandelions and other small, purple flowers hidden in the clover, then she binds her bunch of flowers with a rubber band, lays them beside my chair for future delivery to her mother.

This is life: not book releases or reviews or sales figures, but walking the dog in the rain and watching Leo celebrate after grabbing someone’s flag and finding beauty even among the weeds.

Last weekend I went camping with some friends. There was a wind warning for our area, a stay indoors and away from trees warning. As we made our way to the river island where we were setting up camp, in the distance we heard a massive tree falling. First, there was the intense repetitive cracking, like gunfire, then the long wheezing fall, and the final crash into the undergrowth, shockwaves moving out. The silence that enters behind a fallen tree is immense and stretches like the sky.

We carried in far too much stuff for one night, set up a peaceful little camp on the banks of the Susquehanna River, and fed the fire. We sat around the flames and talked about life. There are things you will say at midnight in the dancing shadows that you would not say at any other time, at any other place.

We slept shoulder to shoulder in a four-man tent, and I sank into my sleeping bag, the cold nipping at the top of my head. The 30 mph wind rushed through the trees, sounding like raging water. I woke in the night, wondering if the dam had released the river, if what I heard was the swift approach of liquid swallowing everything.

* * * * *

These days, our house is a maze of boxes. The walls in almost every room are lined with them, the living room contains stacks of boxed books, and plastic containers cover half of the dining room table. This evening we ate dinner close together, our elbows bumping.

We move in 3 ½ weeks from this house where we’ve lived for seven years. The term bittersweet was created for days like these.

I’ve felt a kind of numbness for about a year now, as if my major emotions have been wrapped in gauze. The days pass. I love Maile. I hang out with the kids. I do the work I have to do. But there’s a kind of filter covering everything, the kind of filter that feels like a sigh. While being very aware of everything, of the strangest tiny details, I feel sort of on the outside, much like an observer of my own life.

I sense the sadness of those around me, of those living with cancer or difficult relationships or health problems or financial disappointment. There has been death—relatives, friends, my parents’ friends. I know the pain is there—I am aware of its heaviness. And yet I cannot feel it at a deep level.

* * * * *

When we woke up in the morning, the sun shone bright off the water and small branches and leaves littered the campsite, little pieces blown off by the wind. I stood by the glaring light, my eyes dazed, and I wondered about the nature of night, the way it passes, the way morning can make it feel like the dark never happened. The way middle-of-the-night fear washes off.

The next day, at home, I climbed the ladder and took down the books from the highest shelf: American Short Stories, and Shakespeare’s Complete Works, and the old German Bible I inherited from my grandmother. It was the last of the books. The shelves are empty now.

We box up our lives, don’t we? This here, that over there. What if we ever took the time to unpack all that we have hidden?

I looked at the stark shelves, the piles of boxed books. I sat in the armchair, and I fell asleep.

Today we speak with author and speaker Kathy Khang about launching grown children from the nest during a pandemic, why we should keep writing even when our platforms are not massive, and the role that creativity plays in bringing about justice and healing in our world. Also: midlife, discount shopping, and The Electric Company. 

As always, there are a few ways to listen: click the play button in the image above, go to our website to hear this and all of our other episodes, or head on over to Apple podcasts or Spotify!

If you love the content we’re creating, and if you’d like access to some bonus interviews and other material, and if you’d like to help us feed our six children, you can contribute $5 / month over at our Patreon account to make all of that happen. This podcast depends on listeners like you! Thank you!

And keep writing!

Shawn and Maile talk revisions, perfection, and when to take a manuscript to the next stage. They also share the back stories of the authors they’re currently reading, one on the young side, the other on the older side, and remind each other that there’s no perfect age when it comes to releasing books. Except now. Now might be the perfect age. 

As always, there are a few ways to listen: click the play button in the image above, go to our website to hear this and all of our other episodes, or head on over to Apple podcasts or Spotify!

If you love the content we’re creating, and if you’d like access to some bonus interviews and other material, and if you’d like to help us feed our six children, you can contribute $5 / month over at our Patreon account to make all of that happen. This podcast depends on listeners like you! Thank you!

And keep writing!

Today, we talk with Dr. Karen Swallow Prior about creating intentionally. She has some encouragement for young (all) writers. And, the answer everyone wants to know: Why is she on Twitter?

Dr. Prior is the author of the book, On Reading Well, and has also written updated reading guides for classics like Frankenstein and Jane Eyre. 

As always, there are a few ways to listen: click the play button in the image above, go to our website to hear this and all of our other episodes, or head on over to Apple podcasts or Spotify!

If you love the content we’re creating, and if you’d like access to some bonus interviews and other material, and if you’d like to help us feed our six children, you can contribute $5 / month over at our Patreon account to make all of that happen. This podcast depends on listeners like you! Thank you!

And keep writing!

What should every writer have? Apparently, a dog. We discuss Cameron Shenassa’s wonderfully funny and insightful article and talk about famous authors and their pets (including Steinbeck’s dog Toby and his critical review/devouring of Of Mice and Men). But, most importantly, we discuss the one thing all creatives can learn from dogs: let yourself be distracted. 

As always, there are a few ways to listen: click the play button in the image above, go to our website to hear this and all of our other episodes, or head on over to Apple podcasts or Spotify!

If you love the content we’re creating, and if you’d like access to some bonus interviews and other material, and if you’d like to help us feed our six children, you can contribute $5 / month over at our Patreon account to make all of that happen. This podcast depends on listeners like you! Thank you!

And keep writing!