Liesl Garner, Writer – Wildish Woman – Seeker – Poet
Today, Bean and I had some errands to run, and I chose the Pandora Station “Peter, Paul and Mommy” for our musical background. We sang along to Feed the Birds, from Mary Poppins, and some Simon & Garfunkel, a little John Denver, songs from The Sound of Music and we sang Puff the Magic Dragon…
No, I cannot hide emotion well. I am a poet, for Pete’s Sake. I feel everything deeply, I express what I feel in words or with tears, or with a face that says it all. I am easily read by those around me. My little Bean is old enough to want to read The Chronicles…
Driving straight into a thick blanket of fog, I wondered about our world, the darkness and lack of visibility we are entering. I remembered the blizzard in the Little House on the Prairie books that hit suddenly while children were at the school-house. They formed a line with outstretched arms – trying to get all…
par·a·dox noun \ˈper-ə-ˌdäks, ˈpa-rə-\ : something (such as a situation) that is made up of two opposite things and that seems impossible but is actually true or possible Ben went through a Phantom of the Opera phase a while back, after reading a kid version of the story at school, and made the mask,…
I have gotten out of the habit of writing, and my world is suffering. The walls start closing in on me when my creativity is on hiatus. When I am drawn like a moth to bad news, and the marching feet of the demise of our civilization, I sit stoop-shouldered and spineless and terrified –…
It all started with Harold & the Purple Crayon. My youngest and I read the story together in front of a blazing fire and he said he wanted to have this book in his collection someday when he grows up and moves out. I told him he would need his own copy because there…
This morning, I read Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and my whole spirit calmed down. He lived and was martyred during one of the most awful periods for the church. And yet, his words are like a balm and a reminder of what community is supposed to be like for believers. I do not think we are…
My boys and I see pictures in the sky. We see big, bold, ridiculous, pictures sometimes, and we laugh and point. This is beginner imagination building that we have been doing since they were tiny. Now, they can create a story out of thin air. (The picture here looks a little like Olive Oil, from…
Last night at dinner, we got into a conversation about music lyrics, and my husband and I were both telling stories of growing up in a time when we had to guess at half the lyrics. We had to listen over and over when a song came on the radio, or try to record…
Another bad thing in a world of bad things. I have not become numb, that is not what has happened. I crumble with each new attack, with each new assault – foreign or domestic. And then I disconnect, and block out the media, and become absorbed in my kids’ interests and the activities we can do…
It seems I have been struggling under a delusion that if I could just get my house organized Once and For All, everything would stay put. But it is more insipid than that – there is a strand of Once and For All twirling all through my head. If I could nail down my belief…
“At this point in his life, he hadn’t started inhabiting his work, like he did later.”
