I am a wife, mom, and nature lover living in the Pacific Northwest. My writing represents the intersection of my interests in nature, creativity, parenting, and human development.
Beauty & Destruction
Our beautiful quiet neighborhood of Texas live oaks, was serene during the ice storm of the past week until we began to hear the sounds of cracking wood.
The several hundred year-old-trees had seen many storms, but this one was just too much for many to bare. We kept a worried vigil for the survival of ours. It did, others went so lucky. The strain of the added weight on the leaved branches was just too much for many of the colony of trees that spread throughout our area. Some came down in crashes onto roofs and cars, while others slowly spit open from the mounting pressure. There are lessons to be learned from our relationship to place shown through our emotional responses to change.
The kindness of neighbors heard through the hum of chainsaws.
Be well,
Kathy
Kathy Donchak
Writer
I am a wife, mom, and nature lover living in the Pacific Northwest. My writing represents the intersection of my interests in nature, creativity, parenting, and human development.
The more I journal, the more people in my life show up in its pages. This morning, Chris Brogan wrote about what happens when I tell them about it. I started writing in a journal years ago, but it wasn’t in one book. It was all over the place. My journal became so cluttered with to-do lists and work projects, I grew frustrated that I couldn’t keep my thoughts organized. During the pandemic, I tried something new. I gave myself permission to let all of my thinking show up in my pages, with...
I am learning Telugu. /ˈtel.ə.ɡuː/. I met a beautiful, bright, and curious seven-year-old girl that lives across the street, who was bursting at the seams to tell me all the words she knows from her native language. She shared how hard it was to move away from friends, and why she cannot write in Telugu yet, by swirling her finger through the air. I asked her how to say neighbor in Telugu, but she didn’t know that word yet, so I looked it up when I came inside. Hopefully one of my readers can...
“Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.” ~ Edvard Munch Being immersed in a forest for the past few weeks has me thinking about the connection between biodiversity and neurodiversity. We have been noticing things. The colonies of trees and the soft carpet of mosses, from far away, look the same, but getting closer reveals an understory. A diverse ecosystem of plants living harmoniously, supporting the growth of one another. For...