Living sequestered has brought about some unusual changes in our household. Time is more fluid, beginnings and endings less defined. Some of the structure and the behaviors that held things together seem less important. These days, there are no discreet individual projects; one seems to lead into the next. Replacing doorknobs and hinges leads to…
Getting Back To The Garden
I keep wondering how our garden back in Breckenridge is doing. Alan and I are away for a few weeks, in Maine. Before we left Breckenridge we tidied up everything, inside and out—cleaning and vacuuming the house, mowing the lawn, weeding the flowerbeds. The daffodils were fading but the tulips were still blooming in…
Calming the Mind in the Time of COVID-19
As news about coronavirus flooded every media outlet in March and early April, my mind began to jump all over the place like a scared rabbit. One day, as predictions became increasingly dire, I pulled a book off my shelf, “The Yoga Sutras.” The sutras are a series of aphorisms, or sayings, that are…
Podcast: Going West
In 2014, I moved from South Florida to the Rocky Mountains. I was 52-years-old; I had plenty of flip-flops but no warm coat, no money, and not much of a job. But I was in love. Going West, recorded recently, was the first of many pieces I’ve written over the past five years for our…
Will You Walk With Me?
Some people imagine love as two individuals merging beneath a romantic sunset, amidst candies and flowers and the ka-boom! of fireworks exploding. When I think about love, the first thing that comes to my mind is my husband Alan and me having yet another argument at the breakfast table. During a recent sparring match, we…
Nosy Neighbors
“I guess you had a hard time sleeping last night!” our 80-year-old next-door-neighbor shouted out to Alan, as we emerged from the house one morning to take a walk. Our neighbor waved to us from his kitchen porch, a location from which he had an excellent view of our house, driveway, and yard. “I saw…
What Is That Noise?
Shrieeeeek! Alan and I sit up in bed. “Oh crap,” he says. Shrieeeeeeeeek! Driven by a horrible, high-pitched sound we both jump out of bed. Our dog and cat scramble into the closet to hide. It’s 2:30 in the morning. “Why do we have to have these stupid alarms?” I yell, as if it is…
My Mother’s Cat
I wake up late, 7 in the morning, in the guest room of my mother’s house in Florida. For a second I am lost, my mind operating in the time that was the day-before-yesterday, or last week. One night, there’d been a knock on the door at 2 a.m., from the nurse worried about Mom’s…
You Love The Thunder
“When you look over your shoulder And you see the life that you’ve left behind When you think it over, do you ever wonder? What it is that holds your life so close to mine.” – Jackson Browne, You Love the Thunder The music starts rolling in months before our 40th high school reunion….
Coming Home
Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last, In things best known to you, finding the best, or as good as the best, In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest; Happiness, knowledge, not in another place but this place – not for another hour but this hour……
christina holbrook 
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