Taking Root
Seventeen-year-old Delaney Moran is trying to make it on her own but panic attacks threaten to undermine her independence. Luella, a determined social worker, and Murray, the owner of a music store, want to help her but in doing so, they uncover a secret from her past.
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When I was about fourteen and having a cavity filled, I must have flinched. Rather than give me a little more anesthetic, the dentist gripped my jaw firmly and kept drilling. As a result, it took me most of the rest of my life to find a dentist I was comfortable with. Not “comfortable” as…
Weathering the Storm
I’d forgotten what it felt like to wake up feeling cocooned, with the soft, insulating patter of rain outside the window. It’s been quite a while since we’ve had to think about the pathways that divert floodwaters around our rural property. The old drainage ditches and culverts had been neglected but the general topography of…
Sky Blue Pink
Speaking of language (okay, an admittedly weak segue from the last post—not that there needs to be one), I sometimes find myself looking up new words that are increasingly being tossed around in conversation or in print. “Gaslighting” and “woke” are two examples that I thought I understood the meaning of but wanted to be…
Other Writings
Thoughts on Fishing
My junior high school English teacher asked each of her students to find a poem and bring it to class. Flipping through the pages of my parents’ Viking Book of Poetry, I settled on “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop. In exquisite detail, she portrays an ancient, grandfatherly fish that could fight no more. Old hooks and pieces of line were embedded in his jaw but what I remember most was the sadness and surrender she described in his eyes as she held him half out of the water alongside the boat, before letting him go. Her poem resonated with me in an almost visceral way because I’d often gone fishing alone or with my father.
Brenda Bellinger 