About the Ghost Turtles
150 years after Robert Duncanson painted this luminist scene on the Little Miami River, I stood in the same spot and saw a soft-shelled turtle sunning on a snag. It slipped silently into the water when it heard me. That’s when I knew past is present and destiny, too. That’s when my vision of the Ghost Turtles began. Read more
Ecology of the Senses
Returning to Lake Superior year after year like a migrating loon, I’ve learned the other side of a slow, uncertain process that could be called “going blind.” With the lake as my teacher, I know what lies on the other side. I call it letting go of sight. Read more.Prayer at Big Creek
![Sandhill cranes land on Platte River sandbar roosts west of Rowe Sanctuary’s Iain Nicolson Audubon Center southwest of Gibbon, Nebraska. [Photo by Lori Porter| Kearney Hub]](https://www.ghostturtles.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/sandhill_cranes_kearneyhub_032015-300x225.jpg)
At the threshold of consciousness, as I slipped back and forth between two worlds, I put my mind in the best place I could imagine, a marsh on Lake Erie called Big Creek. I knew I’d find cranes waiting for me. I cannot say whether I prayed for them, or to them, or with them. The cant of words doesn’t matter. I believe in the still, small voice. I believe what the poet Yehuda Amichai said. Gods come and go. Prayer is eternal. Read moreFreedom to Read
![An endangered Whooping crane takes flight. Yhe large bird has a 7-foot wingspan. It is all white except for black wing tips and face markings. In this photo its long neck stretches forward; its wings sweep upward; and its black legs trail straight behind it. [Source: International Crane Foundation]](https://www.ghostturtles.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Whooping-crane-eastern-ICF-080622-300x157.jpg)
Whenever I hear sanctimonious pronouncements about woke, parental rights, and banning books, I think of Whooping cranes. In my family, the gawky, audacious, elusive and endangered birds are synonymous with our values about the First Amendment and the freedom to read. Read more.Sister, Teacher, Pathfinder
A guidance counselor in high school told my sister Diana, “With your eye problems you will never make it in college. Just forget about it. Get married. Raise a family.” That advice only deepened her determination. She did it all in due time, in her own way –college, marriage, family. She became a guidance counselor herself. She certainly was the most important guide and pathfinder in my life. Read more.Flaneur & Bouquiniste
![Mark Willis peruses a 1745 volume by Voltaire at a bouquiniste book stall on the banks of the Seine in Paris. He wears a brown leather jacket and checkered flat cap. He holds the open book in his hands. Rows of old books are seen on shelves behind him. [2005 photo by Ms. Modigliani]](https://www.ghostturtles.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/mw_bouquiniste_05-300x225.jpg)
I remember the book I held in my hands that day. I remember the feel of its time-warped, water-stained pages. I remember its murky, moldy river smell, call it the book’s bouquet, suggesting years of storage on the banks of the Seine. Had I bought it then, I could feel and smell it now and know it from a hundred other books in my library. Read more.R & K: A Rant
Marjorie Taylor Green auditioned for R&K’s Authoritarian It Girl at the 2023 State of the Union address. She and her Republican colleagues yelled like Tarzan swinging through the trees as they jeered and booed the President’s speech. Read Rants & Kisses.R & K: A Kiss
Songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Singers like Dione Warwick and Dusty Springfield. What Do You Get When You Fall in Love? The Look of Love. I Say a Little Prayer. I sit in the car’s back seat and listen. I’m glad it’s dark. I’d be embarrassed if anyone could see the dreamy look on my face. Read Rants & Kisses.
Tag Archives: Yellow Springs
Lessons My Mother Never Imagined
I still make the kinds of innocent mistakes made recently by fully sighted people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lost and looking for directions on a lonely country road? I’ve been there. Knocking on a door at the wrong address? I’ve done that. Climbing into the wrong car in a parking lot? Guilty. To the extent I see them, all cars look alike. Continue reading
Posted in Memoir, Rants and Kisses
Tagged blind, foot rage, gubs, Mary Lou, walkable community, white cane, Yellow Springs
Comments Off on Lessons My Mother Never Imagined
A Bouquiniste Dilemma: To Sell or Not to Sell
If I had only one afternoon in Paris, I’d spend it all with the bouquinistes on the banks of the Seine. After one afternoon with them, I’d sell my soul to the devil, jump ship, and hitch my wagon to their star. Pick your metaphor. I don’t care about buying books anymore. I want to sell them. Continue reading
Posted in Books, Flaneur, Memoir
Tagged books, bouquiniste, Dayton Street, Paris, Yellow Springs
Comments Off on A Bouquiniste Dilemma: To Sell or Not to Sell
Heart of Oak
I’ve spent a long time imagining “gnarly”. I look around the calm bedroom where I do much of my reading and writing and try to unpack the scene. My son is there with a Yellow Springs cop, three paramedics, a defibrillator and LUCAS device – all of them working expeditiously so they could get me down the stairs alive for another trip to the hospital. Continue reading
Posted in Memoir
Tagged 2020s, Appalachian Trail, Bob, Brendan, Clifton Gorge, csrdio, poetry, Yellow Springs
Comments Off on Heart of Oak
A Ghost Dance for the Turtles
Robert Duncanson painted “Blue Hole, Little Miami” in 1851. Today it hangs in the Cincinnati Art Museum. A hundred and fifty years after he painted the luminist scene in Clifton Gorge, I stood in the same spot and saw a soft-shelled turtle sunning on a snag. It slipped silently into the water when it heard me. That’s when I knew past is present and destiny, too. That’s when my vision of the Ghost Turtles began. Continue reading
Posted in Memoir
Tagged art, Ghost Dance, Ghost Turtles, Little Miami River, turtles, Yellow Springs
Comments Off on A Ghost Dance for the Turtles
Sandhill Cranes Are on the Move!
Thrilled to hear a flock of Sandhill cranes fly over my garden this morning. Spring is on the move! Listen @ bird-ssounds.net | FB022323a |
Posted in Ecology of the Senses
Tagged bird sounds, birds, DSBO, Yellow Springs
Comments Off on Sandhill Cranes Are on the Move!
Manhattan Mojo for a Walkable Neighborhood
I felt like the guy in that Joni Mitchel song, “I was a free man in Paris, unfettered and alive.” Except it wasn’t Paris, it was New York. I hadn’t gotten my Manhattan mojo yet. I needed to settle into the tempo of the street, the people and the traffic. Continue reading
Posted in Memoir, Rants and Kisses
Tagged foot rage, Grammercy Park, Manhattan Mojo, walkable community, walking, Yellow Springs
Comments Off on Manhattan Mojo for a Walkable Neighborhood
