In my time,
I have seen many lives
come and go.
I wish you could hear.
I would tell you what I know:
Everyone leaves eventually.
Except me.
(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Brave and Beautiful
Beauty and bravery, tutus and toughness, femininity and fortitude – these things are not mutually exclusive. What Lucy can dream, she can do. And I want her to live in a world where no one can tell her no just because she’s a girl.
October Eve (A Poem)
Welcome to the ghoulies and the ghosties
and the spirits
of ancestors long since dead,
and welcome to those who remember them as if they are still here.
Welcome to oranges and golds
and to wood smoke and sunsets and the chill in the air
that reaches your bones and your toes.
Welcome to October,
to the darkening of the year,
to traditions and tales to tell and moments of reflection.
Welcome, welcome, to the ancient
Month of Stories.
Sit for a spell and take your share.
Old Friend (A Poem)
My oldest friend (or so it seems),
how nice to be acquainted once more.
Dear Night-time,
we never do part ways for long, do we?
And here we are again,
singing this same familiar song
in chorus with the moon and the tide and the stars,
waiting and not waiting
for the rest of the world to join us.
Quiet though we may be,
we’re quite good company,
you and the dark sky and me.
Coastal Storms and the Anxious
Well, after a near miss from Hurricane Erin and a surprisingly and fortunately quiet Atlantic hurricane season, we saw some storm action yesterday and last night. And y’all, I don’t even know what to say.
This was not presented as a big thing. It was neither hurricane nor tropical storm. It did not have a name. But the weather system that rolled through Virginia Beach over the course of yesterday dumped seven inches – SEVEN INCHES – of rain on us. And there was wind. I think the news mentioned gusts of 59 miles per hour.
It was a big thing, as it turns out, and I didn’t even know to be anxious about it.
Don’t worry, though. I got there.
Watching our back patio flood and a small river develop down our driveway, yeah, that wasn’t fun for me. But it was the water creeping up our front yard, closer and closer to our house, that really got me.
It doesn’t look like much in the picture, I know. You could easily say I was overreacting. (I might even agree with you.) But that is solidly three or four feet of water on our fence line, and it just kept rising. I was not in a good mood, and I didn’t sleep well last night.
Thankfully, it’s receded today and things have dried out, and I’m feeling better.
But, again, this was not even a tropical storm. IT WASN’T EVEN A TROPICAL STORM.
Coastal living is something, you guys. I guess I should just file this under “Things I’ll Adjust To.” Right? RIGHT???
Weird Things Writers Do
My name is Katie, and I have animated conversations – by myself, out loud – between characters I made up. Often on my porch swing, where all the neighbors can see. (I’m sure they’re not paying attention.)
Y’all, writers are weird.
Or maybe it’s just me?
Am I late to this party? Yeah, probably. But I was sitting outside last night, thinking about a scene I wanted to write, and acting out the dialogue – very energetically – and I thought, “You know, if someone didn’t know you, they might think you’re not all there.”
When Graham first saw my carefully chaotic assortment of mostly empty notebooks, I think he found it kind of charming. Now…well, now he knows me well enough to mostly ignore it. But also wonders why I need so many and why they all need to live in a pile on my desk but also beside the bed and in the living room and behind the driver’s seat of my car just in case I hear something funny in public and want to remember it.
He’ll never get used to the questions, though. Random questions, all the time, especially to people I just met. I’ve gotten pretty good at fitting them into the flow of a good chat, though. Like, if you met me, you probably wouldn’t even realize I’m gently interrogating you for the purposes of storytelling. Unless you’re a writer, too. Because then you’re probably doing the same thing.
I can’t remember the moment I developed most of these little weirds. Was I always like this? Probably. I used to get in trouble a lot for daydreaming, even when I was really little. I continue to view daydreaming as my superpower.
Oh, and my coffee’s gone cold. That happens a lot, too.
So anyway, are you normal, or do you too collect and hoard notebooks like they’re a finite resource?
Because if you do – if you, too, are weird like me – we should probably be friends.
(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Happiness is..
…a sunny morning on the sand and also this random candle she found in Nana Meg’s cabinet and carried around for the rest of the day.
Rooting for the Anticlimax
Well, Hurricane Erin has come and gone. Or, rather, it’s gone and it was never really here to begin with.
I’m not unhappy about that at all. Sometimes, anticlimactic is good.
It’s my first hurricane season as an official resident of Virginia Beach, and though I’m not too worried generally, I admit I was concerned about and disconcerted by all the watches and warnings that accompanied Erin’s not-landfall here. As a lifelong mountain critter – if not in body than certainly in spirit – I find the ocean intimidating. Coastal storms were something that, growing up, we actually talked about pretty often. You know, as in: “Gee, sure glad and grateful we aren’t dealing with that.”
And now here I am, living very close to the big water, right on the coast. It’s a funny old life.
At any rate, I am quite grateful that the most we saw of Erin in our neck of the woods – er, our stretch of the sand – was just a little bit of a breeze, some higher than usual high tides, and rough waves.
The surfers had a great time. Waves in Virginia Beach are normally pretty calm, so these were fun to watch. From a distance.
I know the Outer Banks in North Carolina dealt with more, and I’ve heard Norfolk had some flooding. But as storms go, we got lucky. And I’m hoping we stay lucky through this season. Because as much as I love new experiences, I definitely don’t have “See a hurricane up close and personal” on my 2025 bingo card.
(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Spaghetti Monster
The question is…
…is Lucy the spaghetti monster, or does she think the spaghetti is a monster? Further study will be required, I think, to make a final determination.
Living on Thirty-Nine Time
It’s my birthday today. I’m thirty-nine. It’s the oldest I’ve ever been, and the youngest I’ll ever be again. I’m grateful for it. A lot of people don’t get to see this number. I’m also feeling a little melancholy, as I often do on birthdays.
My in-laws sent me a sweet message this morning with some pictures that they’ve collected through the years. Here’s Graham and me, for our engagement announcement, all the way back in 2013.
And even farther, here’s me and my parents, on the day I graduated from high school. In 2004.
Both of my grandmothers are standing behind us. They’ve been gone for years. I love their faces.
Here’s me, with Graham and Lucy, just Friday, at a fairy party. (I was a blue fairy. Lucy found a bottle of sunscreen, and liked it much better than the pink magic wand she was given to match her outfit. Kids.)
Time really does fly. Yesterday, I was eighteen, and today I’m thirty-nine. I mean, not really. But it feels that way. They’re so good, and they’ve been so happy, but where do the years go?
I spent a lot of time when Annie was just a puppy wishing for the day when things would get a little easier. As I wiped up messes and covered up chew spots and hid shoes away, I’d think – eventually, one day, this won’t be so hard. And it did get easier, as it sometimes does. But when I look back now, I realize that all I was doing was wishing away precious days of Annie’s life.
And that’s quite a realization.
We’re all told that life is short, that you should value your time and not waste it and you should treat it as the limited resource that it is. I’ve said as much to myself, and to friends and to family and to random people at trivia night after I’ve had a few beers. I just don’t think it really hit me until now. And that’s living on thirty-nine time.
I look at Lucy’s face, changing every day, and wonder how I could ever wish this time away. And yet I do. I sit and wonder when she’ll sleep through the night (so far, not at all), when she’ll be able to tell me what’s wrong instead of just crying in my face, when she’ll understand the word no and stop biting me on the arm, when things will get just a little more easy. I don’t think of it as wishing away days of her life – and that’s definitely not what I’m consciously doing – but that’s what it is.
Thirty-nine time.
The days go slow. The years go fast. And one day, if I’m so lucky and so blessed, I’ll be sixty-nine, and seventy-nine, maybe even eighty-nine. And I’ll look back on the hard days and remember them not because they were hard, but because they were beautiful.
I’m no wiser than anyone else. And I’m not the first person to wax poetic about the fleeting and finite nature of our lives. I’m just here, with a little girl, on my birthday, truly feeling it for the for the first time, trying my best to be mindful, trying my best to make sure her days are good and happy. Trying my best to just enjoy every moment, even the hard ones.
I think that’s all any of us can do.
And that’s thirty-nine time.
A Virginia Writer's Diary 