One Minnesota Crone

Ides of March

In thinking about moments that keep me sane right now, I’m considering what quells my fears for a bit. Loosen anxiety’s grip around my throat. Turns my head to a view that doesn’t include any monsters who disregard the chaos they leave in their wake.

I’ve written before about finding whatever builds our resilience and nourishes our strength. We are all called to do world-changing acts, contribute to the good of others, especially when things are out of whack as they are now. Things we do to sustain ourselves in private moments matter to keep ourselves going. These are some of mine, in no particular order.

Making a home for Finn the wheaten terrier, whose training takes up a lot of our time
Morning coffee made slowly in a pour-over pot that lives on the back burner of our stovetop
Evenings on the couch with Mick, watching detective, medical, and mystery series of all kinds
Cooking for and with family and friends as often as possible, and lingering around our dining room table
Reading book after book – novels, nonfiction, poetry
Enjoying a glass of red wine while preparing food for dinner, music or news playing in the background
Stepping outside with Finn right before bed and looking up at the night sky
Waking up between five and six a.m. when Mick gets up, then snuggling under the covers to doze off a little more
Singing granddaughter Maeve to sleep at naptime after a lunch of buttered angel hair pasta – always pasta with this kid
Daily walks around our neighborhood, usually with Mick, always with the dog, sometimes with Maeve

I am grateful that I can add things to that list on a daily basis, find moments of loveliness that remind me the world is a balance of good and bad, unbearable and magnificent.

We can choose which to focus on.

It was five years ago that the world as we knew it shut down. March 13, 2020. Suddenly, everyone was at home, scared out of their minds that a new and deadly virus was killing people all over the world, threatening everyone but especially older people or people with compromised immune systems. We didn’t really know what we were looking at, didn’t know exactly how COVID was spread, didn’t have a vaccine for it, and disagreed on how to tackle a pandemic in a modern world full of misinformation. Many thought things would go back to normal in a few weeks or months. Tempers flared the longer lockdowns, distance learning, and remote work went on, dividing people into those who masked and those who did not, those who believed in public health efforts and those who did not.

I have a close friend who was on the front lines as a nurse in a Twin Cities hospital. I remember her talking about her face getting sore from being masked all the time, families of patients being unable to visit their loved ones in the hospital, how she took off her scrubs and shoes before she even got into the house so that she didn’t expose her own family to anything and headed straight for the shower. The suffering patients she saw should have convinced anyone of the wisdom of taking care and masking up and being smart, but we all know the rest of this story.

My granddaughter Camille went to distance learning and spent hours in her bedroom, learning through a computer screen, her third-grade self adaptable but probably quite confused about what was happening. And then her parents, my son and daughter-in-law, moved to remote teaching so that all three were at home in a two-bedroom apartment trying to work without interrupting each other Monday through Friday.

My daughter, an employee of Target but not at the corporate level, did not have the option of remote work. She had to show up and hope that she didn’t get COVID herself, because as someone with type 1 diabetes that could very easily have landed her in the hospital. She masked up religiously, washed her hands constantly, and somehow made it through three years of the pandemic before she contracted COVID. By that time, between vaccines and the evolution of the virus, her case of COVID was not too bad.

I remember scheduling weekly video chats with both kids and their families so that we could see each others’ faces and hear each others’ voices on a regular basis without risk. Every Friday night for most of the first year of the pandemic, we sat down in front of our computers and talked to each other. And we figured out how to do holidays via video chat so that no one was at risk of exposure. I remember dropping Christmas presents on Abby’s and Shawn’s front steps and picking up gifts from them, then all of us getting online so we could open them together.

At the end of the first year, we decided to discontinue the video chats because everyone was sick of doing things via computer screen. Yes, they had offered us a lifeline. And then we craved real time. Vaccines were coming out, so it was just a matter of time before we could be together again in a normal way. But we did a lot of things together outside and we limited who we spent time with, so that we could prioritize family time and be safe.

My granddaughter Maeve was born during the pandemic. She was a bright light in the middle of that time. Her other grandparents and Mick and I all agreed that we would be the ones to provide child care for her, that it wasn’t safe for her to go to a daycare and potentially bring home COVID to the whole family. The arrangement has held to this day.

I had so hoped living through a pandemic and coming out the other side of it would make us more aware of the beauty and strength found in caring for one another. How disappointing that we’re not there yet. Here we are, five years later, and the world isn’t safer. Those things now making us unsafe cannot be deterred by a mask or a vaccine.

They can only be deterred by us.

Focus. Focus. Focus.

Finn sleeps on the floor near me as I write this. Mick and I took him for a walk this morning, one in which I ran with him around an empty church parking lot and let him sniff things all along the way. In the three weeks he’s been with us, he’s met everyone in our family and many of our friends, wagged his tail at every dog we’ve seen, and relaxed into napping anywhere he lays down in the house, belly exposed, completely trusting that he’ll be fine here.

Granddaughter Maeve sleeps like that when she’s here, too – fully relaxed, trusting that we’ll be there when she wakes, and that she’s safe.

To provide a safe space for children and dogs is a gift, one that feels like a little bit of magic.

While Finn sleeps, there’s a coyote who thinks our backyard is a safe space. He (she?) lounges in our garden as I continue to think about this post, continue to tap on keys and try to find the right words. But the coyote proves to be a complete distraction, and I keep going to the window to watch. The coyote lays down, nods off, sleeps in short spurts. He wakes, glances around, returns to his rest. I remember others who have bedded down in the same area behind our wildflower garden: deer, foxes, a stray cat, an opossum.

I like to think there’s honor in this coyote’s presence, in his use of our yard as a sanctuary or – at the very least – a good place to pick up a rabbit for dinner and then fashion a coyote couch upon which to digest his meal.

More than that, I wish I felt more like my home truly was a sanctuary within all the chaos of our country right now. I can’t quite shake the feeling that I could lose it at any moment.

Is anything really permanent? It doesn’t take a government shifting gears to alter lives. There can be tornadoes, earthquakes, fires, floods, crop failures, wars, and so much more. Our hopes for a permanent place to live are a denial of the very nature of the universe: constant change. But amidst that change are always small offerings of joy: the play of sunlight across a dining room table, notes from a saxophone played for pure pleasure by a beloved spouse, pink tulips blooming in a pot on the windowsill, a dog sleeping at one’s feet. Today is a weirdly warm day in Minnesota and I have the patio door open; I can hear the slap-slap-slap of a basketball from a driveway on the next street over. Our white pines sigh in strong March wind. There might be a thunderstorm tonight, one that cleans the air of dust and old winter smells.

I think of the changing of seasons, the changing of life as an American, the shifting seats of power in the world and know that this is something that happens time and time again. Power rises and falls, people reach for justice over and over, mistakes are made, rules are changed. Right now, it feels like hope is a thin thing. But we still have our words, our actions on the community level, our resilience, and our small moments that belong to us alone.

To fear what the future will look like is a waste of time. To do our best in this moment is not. I will sip my tea, write to my senators (again), cheer on my friend who went to the veterans’ march at the capitol this week, care for my granddaughter and tell her stories about strong women who don’t let anyone tell them who they can be. I will try to be that strong woman for her and her big sister.

And then we’ll go outside and smell the spring air, listen to the birds, welcome another day with new choices, different battles, stronger light.

I’ll tell her I love her.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

The Finn Chronicles – Welcome Home

EVERY DOG'S STORY
by Mary Oliver

I have a bed, my very own.
It's just my size.
And sometimes I like to sleep alone
with dreams inside my eyes.

But sometimes dreams are dark and wild and creepy
and I wake and am afraid, though I don't know why.
But I'm no longer sleepy
and too slowly the hours go by.

So I climb on the bed where the light of the moon
is shining on your face
and I know it will be morning soon.

Everybody needs a safe place.


from: Dog Songs, New York: The Penguin Press, 2013.

Our new family member, Finn the wheaten terrier, came home with us on Wednesday, February 19. Born on December 18, he is at a teddy bear stage: fuzzy, cuddly, soft. He mouths everything, follows us everywhere except when he needs to sneak in an accident. Crate training is a challenge, but we want him to have a safe place to be when he can’t be monitored or there is some kind of work going on inside our house, so it’s a must. Puppies are a lot: a lot of work, a lot of joy, a lot of snuggles, a lot of clean-up.

This is Finn.
Photo by kcmickelson 2025.

He hasn’t met many people yet. We have introduced him to our family – kids, grandkids, my brother and sister-in-law – and a couple of neighbors who saw him when we took him outside. Major socializing will come a little later, after his next round of shots. He has other dogs to meet in our neighborhood and in our family.

Meanwhile, Finn is getting used to us and we to him. He’s learning how to signal to go outside. He’s sleeping overnight without much trouble. He’s learned that granddaughter Maeve, at three, is the closest thing to another puppy around our house. He’s figured out which cupboard hides the dog food bag. And he charmed everyone at Minnepau Veterinary Clinic when he had his well-puppy visit one week after we brought him home. (By the way, we were, in turn, charmed by everyone there. It was a great experience meeting Dr. Lorenz and Lisa and Holly.)

Finn blends right in – literally. As he grows, his fur will lighten and he won’t disappear into our floor quite so much.
Photos by kcmickelson 2025.

The next few months will be full of dog training. As spring creeps in, Finn will bloom into a bigger dog. We couldn’t be happier about that.

The day Finn and I met.
Photo by Abby Cassen Hill 2025.

Finding Light When Everything Feels Dark

Earlier this month, my partner Mick and I visited my brother and sister-in-law in Cape Coral, Florida, where they escape from Minnesota winters. We spent a few days there, sneaking time in between the days we provide childcare for our granddaughter Maeve.

While there, we discussed current affairs, of course. None of us likes what’s happening in the United States and all of us are worried, worried, worried about what’s to come. We limited this particular conversation so it wouldn’t take over our entire time together – even though that would have been easy to do.

For our days together, we spent time in a few places where the environment is honored and preserved. Specifically, that meant an eco-tour at Babcock Ranch and many hours spent meandering through Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. Time with nature always strengthens me both mentally and physically, building my resilience and deepening my gratitude for the beauty of life on this planet. It also reinforces my resolve to protect the natural gifts we have left in this country no matter who is in power. We will all suffer if natural places are left open to damage from those for whom making a profit on development, mining, drilling, and other environment-shattering businesses is their only motivation to do anything.

Today, I’m going to share the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary photos. May they help your state of mind, too.

Visitor Center at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, Naples, Florida

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is a more than 13,000-acre sanctuary managed by the National Audubon Society in the western part of the Florida Everglades. On a recent Saturday morning, Mick and I, along with my brother and sister-in-law, spent several hours exploring the boardwalk and overlooks throughout the sanctuary. We marveled at the multitude of birds, alligators, snakes, frogs, anoles, turtles, cypress, pickerelweed blooms, strangler figs, air plants, Spanish moss, alligator flag, and so much more.

And there was the quiet. Signs along the boardwalk ask visitors to be quiet; sound carries a long way among the cypress. When people are quiet, the animals talk. Water laps. Grasses crackle. Wind sighs. So many sounds that we pass over in our daily lives offer another conversation, one that is soothing. One that has existed since the beginning.

We started our visit in the fog. By late morning, the sun burned most of it away. Water droplets outlined spider webs, pine needles, grass blades.

At first, we could hear a lot of birds but couldn’t find them in spite of the binoculars we rented from the reception desk at the visitor’s center. But, by taking our time, we figured out where to look, what to look for, how to pay attention to movement in the vegetation and water. We were impressed that most of the other visitors that day were respectful, quiet, also there to immerse themselves in this magical place and listen to what it had to say.

As we moved through the swamp, I thought about how misunderstood swamps are, how people sometimes equate them with something awful – swamps, morasses, cesspools. But this place teems with life, with interdependent systems of support that plants and animals have woven together for centuries. My brother spotted a gorgeous black snake. My sister-in-law spotted the one frog we could see. Mick and I stumbled on a little sign the indicated a barred owl was sitting in a tree straight out in front of a bend in the trail. We marveled at the strangler figs, how they hugged other trees, made intricate designs with their limbs.

I am not much of a bird photographer, so cannot offer a decent shot of the barred owl we saw, but I can tell you that the delight that bird, camouflaged on a tree limb quite a way from the trail, offered the people who spotted it was immense. Same for the alligators sunning themselves well away from where people could touch them. I saw several visitors with giant telephoto lenses, eager to capture a frame or two of one of the many birds who live in the sanctuary. The desire of so many to take some token of the beauty and peace of this place with them was starkly evident.

To be quiet and listen to what nature has to say is never a mistake. There is so much more to living on this planet than a monetary bottom line or a political gain by any means necessary. I’d rather listen to what the swamp has to say than turn on the news right now. But I won’t ignore what’s going on. These wild places are where I will catch my breath, gear up for the next thing to work toward.

all photos by kcmickelson 2025

On a Day When I’d Rather Not Talk

Sometimes, a trip to the local zoo is just the thing. These beautiful creatures – whom I wish were able to live in the wild but have been raised in captivity, so can’t – always make me feel peaceful.

My three-year-old granddaughter Maeve likes them, too. On a recent trip to Como Zoo in St. Paul, Minnesota, the animals were more active than I’d seen in a while. I remember going to this zoo with my parents when I was a kid, and it’s been vastly improved since then. The animals now have more room to move, are better understood and, thus, better cared for than all those years ago. The sun was out, it was warmer than it had been the week before (as in above zero!), and we all needed some time outside. The animals offered us some much-needed joy.

And moments of joy must be shared. Here you go.

I think I’ve found one of my refuges for the next long while – wandering among the animals.

All photos by kcmickelson 2025, shot with an iPhone 15 Pro Max.

These January Days

Earlier in January, I went to the Land O’Lakes Kennel Club dog show in St. Paul. My partner Mick and I meandered around for the better part of a Saturday, petting dogs when it was appropriate, saying hello to friends who were showing their dobermans, checking out the wheaten terriers because we anticipate a wheaten puppy of our own in the near future. I returned with our daughter Abby on Sunday and spent the whole day there, delighted to watch a parade of puppies, some with very young handlers, then watching the selections that culminated in Best in Show, awarded to a shih tzu (GCHP Hallmark Jolei Out Of This World with handler Luke Ehricht).

Both days, being around all those dogs made me happy. Serene. Dogs are in the moment, no worrying about anything but what’s right in front of them. Their owners may have been worried about how their dogs would place, but the dogs themselves could not be anything other than, simply, dogs.

When we try to be something other than what we are, we always get into trouble.

January 9 was my father’s birthday. He would have been 110 years old this year. I thought of him as I watched coverage of former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral. I remember my dad saying Carter looked like a used car salesman back when he was running for president, but he was the guy Dad voted for. A Democrat, someone with values like ours. As a Catholic girl growing up in the 1970s in a household that supported union workers and whose father worked for the federal government, politics and religion were often discussed around the dinner table. My father was always aware of what was happening – he read the newspaper in its entirety daily, religiously watched the local news at 10 p.m. He had little patience for people who shirked their duty, whether it was to their family or to their country. He himself had served in a war when he had two small children at home waiting for him. He returned home to father two more children, work a job that paid enough to live on, and hold it together after seeing what war does to people because he felt that was the path for him. He was lucky and he knew it.

I believe Jimmy Carter knew he was lucky, too. Over and over, I was struck by the reverence with which people spoke of him – his grandson, the sons of former President Gerald Ford and Vice President Walter Mondale, and others. His honesty was mentioned again and again, his commitment to doing the right thing even when it was unpopular. He doesn’t seem to have ever taken time off to rest.

As the cameras covering the funeral service panned those in the church pews, I wondered how the remaining US Presidents would each be remembered when their times came. It doesn’t seem fair that one of them in particular should even be in the same room with Carter’s body. I can’t imagine Trump sacrificing anything for the good of another human being or being honest about it.

Sitting in front of our fireplace, laptop in my actual lap instead of on top of a desk, I feel grateful for a life that has allowed me to live with people I love in relative safety. The Los Angeles fires and subsequent widespread devastation has been on the news for many days now, long enough that we expect to see its images first thing on every news cast and in every news digest. I cannot fathom how it feels to not only lose everything you have, all of it burned to nothing but ash, but to witness everyone around you also losing everything until the place you live and love is unrecognizable. Like war, I suppose.

I’ve been near only one fire gone out of control in my life – and it was in California, at a science conference on the California side of Lake Tahoe. We were told to evacuate on what would have been the last day of the conference. My partner Mick, our then-12-year-old daughter Abby, and I watched planes dump red fire retardant beyond the nearest mountain ridge as we put our suitcases into our rental car and prepared to leave. One of the spouses of another conference attendee completely freaked out, which surprised me. Everything felt very orderly and we were all going to leave before we were in mortal danger, but he was so frightened he could not get a grip on himself. We drove away as part of a long line of vehicles headed toward Sacramento. It happened to be my birthday. We found a place to say and headed out for pizza instead of having a great bottle of wine with friends at the end-of-conference dinner as planned. And it was still a lovely thing. We were safe and we were together. The fire did not spread to the conference center, we later learned.

We have disaster potential in Minnesota, too, of course: tornadoes, blizzards, floods. Somehow, those feel more manageable – maybe I mean more survivable? – than a massive out-of-control fire that gobbles up an area larger than Manhattan. But I do wonder what tornado season will become as climate change continues its mutations of our weather conditions.

All we can really count on is change.

Things feel scattered and disjointed everywhere. There is so much uncertainty. My friends talk about the uneasiness they feel as this year lurches forward. This post is a little disjointed, too, and yet these things I’ve written about do all go together – they are part of what comprises this start to 2025. Lives unfold with little certainty that our days will be what we’d planned, even though we like to think our plans are exactly what is going to happen.

This morning, Mick and I talked about how people experience this world: whether they first look for the beauty, the awe, that which causes gratitude to come tumbling from our hearts, or whether they default to what is wrong in the world and how everything has to be someone’s fault. Every day Mick and I hit a point where we cannot absorb anymore news and we choose to do something else: read, cook, go for a walk, watch something sweet like PBS’s All Creature Great and Small – anything that will ease the sense that the world is crumbling.

Easy for us to do since we are not in the middle of a disaster, nor are we burying a loved one or trying to rebuild our lives. We will contribute however we can to helping those who need help right now and we will not second-guess those on the ground in Los Angeles or anywhere else that is torn apart for any reason. What is in front of us is a Minnesota landscape, covered with snow at the moment. We have no experience – other than travel, which has always brought us back here – from which to justify offering criticism or advice to someone in a completely different environment.

The Wolf Moon setting on Monday morning flooded our backyard with light. It peered through trees, illuminating winter-bare branches. This same moon would illuminate fire-ravaged trees in California, Washington politicians jogging in the early hours before facing their day’s choices, school children waking to get ready for classes in hopes that they get to come home again later. In this violent, divided country that the rest of the world shakes their heads at, we all share the same moonlight, unwilling to admit we could be sharing so much more.

Meanwhile, Mick and I are going to pick out our puppy in early February, and that puppy will come home with us at the end of that month. I can’t wait for this little creature to become part of our family, to be a constant reminder that there are other perspectives besides our own, especially from all the beings on this planet beyond the humans who are scorching everything, both with and without actual fire. Letting some non-human wisdom, some non-human perspective, into our lives feels like exactly the thing we need in 2025.

And, since we cannot be anything but human ourselves, remembering our common ground – desires for love, happiness, safety, comfort – every time we all look up at the same moon is a good practice. It may be the very practice that helps us keep offering ourselves to the scarred world.

photo by kcmickelson 2025

Turning the Page

As I write this, winter fog curls around last summer’s flower stalks still standing in our back yard. Lights from our Christmas tree reflect on the wood floor. More holiday lights send rays into the evening dusk outside our front door. Gifts have been exchanged, meals shared, glasses raised with family and friends.

This is the quiet before the explosion of New Year’s Eve, but by the time you read this it will already be New Year’s Day. I’ll be waking up in Red Wing, Minnesota, after my partner Mick’s band plays a New Year’s Eve gig at the Red Wing Barrel House, the first bar established in Minnesota. We’ve reserved a room in the St. James Hotel, which was established in 1875. We’ll be steeped in history as we ring in 2025. New Year’s Day will see us having our first breakfast of the year with old friends (and fellow band members), then taking a leisurely drive back home along rural Minnesota roads oddly devoid of snow. Perhaps snow will arrive later in the week.

Once we return home, we’ll turn our attention to what this new year offers us. We will also be thinking about what we can offer in return. Is it more time volunteering? Togetherness with family and friends? Time spent outside? We do have plans – continuing to help with childcare for our granddaughters, expanding our native plant garden to support more pollinators, travel with friends, and welcoming a puppy into our home.

Sometimes the best things that happen are the ones we don’t plan, the ones we don’t see coming. I’m sure there will be surprises that will force me out of my own complacency. Some of them may not be happy, but exercising resilience is a valuable practice.

Whatever 2025 brings, there will be opportunities to share what we have, whether it’s our time, food, joy, an ear to listen, or something else. This kind of focus is what I’d like to hold front and center as we enter into a new era in this country. I can’t think of a better way to deal with the changes that we know are coming.

Happy New Year to you all. Peace.

photo by kcmickelson

Winter Wishes

The solstice will be here in just a few days, the long nights of winter slowly shortening as the sun moves back north for warmer months. But I’m loving right now, the cozy evenings, the holiday lights like electric confetti sprinkled over different neighborhoods, the pile of family gifts growing downstairs where they wait for us to wrap them.

Here’s wishing you a happy everything – whatever you choose to celebrate – in the remaining weeks of 2024. Find your people. Find your love.

Happy Holidays. See you in 2025.

photo by kcmickelson 2024

Hello, December

I love the month of December. Most of it is about anticipation – for holidays of all sorts, time with friends or family, traditional foods we indulge in only during this time of year.

But it is the quieter side of December that gets my attention. The hush of snow falling. The early dark. How stars are so crisply defined in a cold night sky. Warm bedclothes on shivery mornings. The visibility of my own breath when I walk outside.

There are quiet moments in the kitchen: sipping coffee in the early half-light; planning the next meal to share with others; remembering the presence of family in this space, all of us talking and laughing at once.

This is my December, the one that keeps me warm and centered while temperatures drop, and pressure to take part in the multitude of holiday activities and shopping mounts.

The hush of December whispers beneath all our busy-ness. It shushes in a hidden river beside us. It hums along in soft holiday music, flickers in candlelight, rises in steam from hot chocolate next to a fireplace.

It warms a hug shared with someone we love.

Welcome to December.

December is a Fine Time for Poetry

Since reading is the perfect winter activity, please consider the gift of poetry. Forget any bad stuff you might have thought about reading poems (maybe from being forced to in high school?) and come check out some very readable collections from the women poets I’ve interviewed this past year.

That Infinite Roar by Laurie Kuntz

Life Stuff by Rose Mary Boehm

Our Wolves by Luanne Castle

Pequod Poems: Gaming with Moby-Dick by Wilda Morris

In Inheritance of Drowning by Dorsía Smith Silva

And, of course, there are my own poetry collections, which I hope you’ll consider as well.

Prayer Gardening co-authored by Constance Brewer and Kathleen Cassen Mickelson

How We Learned to Shut Our Own Mouths by Kathleen Cassen Mickelson

Happy winter reading, everyone.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Thanksgiving Prep

This week, many of us in the U.S. will gather with family and friends, cook ourselves silly, eat until we are close to bursting. There may be football, both on a television and in the backyard, an old football resurrected from the garage and tossed around while turkey cooks. There may be too much wine poured, relaxing tongues and spilling into conversations no one really wanted to have, secret thoughts offered up to regret later.

Or, maybe, there will be an honest effort at finding something for which to be thankful, looking for something good that is sorely needed in this moment. That’s where I’m at this week, thinking about how my kids, their partners, and my granddaughters will gather with Mick and me around our table this year, lucky that we all live in the same area so we don’t have to navigate airports and highways and worry about the weather. Lucky that we have a house to gather in. Lucky that there will be food on the table and a fireplace we can hang out in front of afterward.

Of course, I am delighted to be planning the food and figuring out what help I need to ask for. There are other really good cooks in this family.

This week, I’m going to make fudge with my oldest granddaughter Camille the day before Thanksgiving. We’ll melt chocolate, stir in marshmallow creme, pour the mixture into a pan as we recreate the same recipe I’ve used since my son Shawn was five years old. I found another recipe for marble fudge that I’m also going to make with Camille, something new to add to this year’s offerings.

As I write this, a 16-pound turkey is resting in our refrigerator. A bag of potatoes waits on the counter. I’m scrounging around for a salad recipe that is different from what I’ve offered in the past. Wine and soda are stocked in the cupboard. And it feels a little festive around here, a little more joyful than it’s felt since the election. Joy is something that can co-exist with awful things; a necessary co-existence that I acknowledge and embrace.

This is part of our resilience – to find the joy, to find the gratitude in our daily lives. To store it up, remember it later.

Happy Thanksgiving. Look for your joy.

OUR FAMILY FUDGE RECIPE

3 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter
5 oz can evaporated milk
12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
7 oz jar marshmallow creme
1 tsp vanilla

Combine sugar, butter, milk in 3-quart saucepan. 
Bring to full rolling boil, stirring constantly.
Cook about 4 minutes over medium heat - keep stirring. 
Remove from heat.
Stir in chocolate until melted.
Add marshmallow creme and vanilla. Stir until well-blended.
Pour into foil-lined pan - 13"X9" for many small fudge pieces or 8" square for fewer but thicker pieces. Let set.
Store fudge in refrigerator.

Head-Clearing Near the River

Yesterday, I woke up out of sorts. A little angry. A little fearful. Not the way I like to start my day.

I knew exactly what I had to do.

By 7:00 a.m., Mick and I were heading out the door. We didn’t have to go far – just a few miles on the other side of St. Paul to Lilydale, where there is a trailhead by the Mississippi River. The trail itself winds beneath I-35E, follows riverside railroad tracks, offers overlooks every so often.

Our starting point for a walk along the river.

The morning was dark, damp, noir-ish. Trees, their limbs mostly bare now that it’s mid-November, raked the low-hanging clouds. We hadn’t gone far when we saw a bald eagle surveying the river banks.

Eagles hang out along the Mississippi River. Even in dim light, their hooked beaks and white heads make them easy to identify.

The eagle was my first moment of awe. When I was a kid, it was rare to see an eagle. Now, I notice them more often, perhaps because of where I tend to hike, but also because of efforts to stop poisoning them with lead and DDT over my lifetime. This eagle had a presence that was graceful, strong. An example to be considered.

My second moment of awe unfolded as I noticed water droplets hanging from some kind of berry-bearing shrub. In the dark morning, the droplets made a chandelier of the shrub, reflecting what little light there was and reminding me that not everything is as dark as it first seems. Our eyes adjust and we find the glimmers.

I had a little trouble getting my iPhone to focus on these droplets, but I tried.

Other moments of awe followed. The sound of water trickling over limestone cliffs. The smell of fallen leaves decomposing into the soil. The smooth glass of the river’s surface. Woodpeckers’ black-and-white bodies flashing through tree branches. Squirrels chattering while sitting on high tree limbs, their furry tails arced into question-marks on their backs.

Mick and I walked for three miles, saw only one other human being. As we settled back into our car, we both felt better. The sun never came out, the morning remained damp and dark, but a walk along the river still offered magic.

Later in the day, a friend on Facebook asked what pieces of advice we could share with each other in this moment, something we believed with our whole heart. I offered mine: “Going for a walk outside always clears your head, even if the weather is crummy.” She answered me with, “Truth.”

Truth indeed.

All photos by kcmickelson 2024.