The View from Rockriver Hill

       “Grandma, I’ll take good care of them and put them up on a wall so they can be displayed and protected,” I said. “No, don’t do that. They’re nice warm, strong, quilts. Use them,” Grandma Ruth had insisted. How could I use something so precious? The gaily-colored red quilts had been made by Rose Llaird, my grandmother’s mother. They had to be at least 80, maybe even 100 years old. I took the quilts home and put them in my cedar chest while I figured out how to mount them on a wall or quilt-rack. But my grandma’s admonition to just use the quilts bounced around in my brain. And that winter, when it grew colder and I needed an extra blanket, I pulled a bright red and yellow star-pattern quilt out of the chest. It was warm. It was strong. It was a great quilt.           Last Spring, when the COVID shut-downs began, my children were suddenly home with me all  day long for weeks on end, and strange and unbelievable news filtered into my house from all around  the world, Grea

      Last fall, I was privileged to attend an online writing workshop called, Finding Your Voice from a creative group called, " The Fold. "       It is a workshop designed to help writers and songwriters unlock their creative voice in a supportive space.       If you are a person who writes poetry or prose, or songs, or a person who breathes, I can't recommend this workshop enough.     I created the following piece in my 2nd Fold Workshop.  For the Mothers who Won't Get Much Sleep Tonight  In the middle of the night, my baby cries out. Instinctively, half-awake, I rise and leave my sleeping husband. I lumber to the baby’s crib, gather him up, and place his head on my shoulder, just he way he likes to be held. He stops crying as soon as he feels my touch. His mother’s touch. I sit down in the well-worn nursing chair, and relax with him, feeding his little body and heart, and his young, but by no means unformed, soul. What a blessing that for at least one

The River of Rocks Covered in Snow                          In a California increasingly known for its unbelievably high housing prices, life in the Kern River Valley is (literally and figuratively) a breath of fresh air. Depending on the area, and market availability, people can usually purchase a good amount of property and house for lower prices than what they would pay in Bakersfield, Los Angeles, the Bay Area, San Diego, or pretty much any well-established area in California.                         If you want acreage, a small ranch, space to build, closeness to wilderness such as streams or mountain, and privacy, I can’t recommend the Kern River Valley enough. Being used to Bakersfield prices (which are also fairly low compared to other places in California,) I have been astonished at how low the property prices are in my neighborhood.                          Of course, there are reasons for this. We are geographically isolated, as I discuss in a former blog post here , and

                    The seed waits under the soil. She sleeps a great deal.                 She cannot feel the sunlight- only darkness, and heavy, cold earth.                 “Will I die?” she wonders, “How long will it take?”                   The seed remembers the sunlight, from a younger, brighter year,                 All she ever wanted was to bask in its warm glow.                 But then she was pressed into the soil.                     And now, down here in the dark,                 She thinks, “Maybe I’ve been forgotten.”                 “Maybe I’ll never feel the sunlight again.”                   The rain seeps through the earth-                 What a blow! It is bitterly cold!                 “I didn’t want the frigid rain! I wanted the sunshine!”                   And then comes the day when her shell begins to ache.                 “Oh, it hurts! I am cracking! I am breaking all over!                            So this is how I d

  Me, introducing "Fools," our first full-length show in 2008  “We want you to put on plays,” said my school administrator. “Oh, that is so exciting!” I said, “What kind of budget do I have to work with?”   “Oh- You’re going to need to fundraise. Ask the local businesses for help,” directed my school administrator. “Alright,” I said “Great…”   But what I was thinking was, “Wait? So I have zero budget….and why would local businesses care?”                 This was thirteen years ago, and KVHS had recently completed its Fine Arts/Multi-Purpose Building. I was about 24 years old at this time. I had an English Degree with a Drama Minor, but had never directed a full-length play and I knew zilch about fundraising. I did know that a good play, considering royalties, cast-size, costuming and set pieces, could easily cost about $2,000 or more to produce. I hoped that if we could start producing annual shows, we could eventually use ticket sales to cover the costs, but we

    photo credit:  https://freesvg.org/vector-illustration-bug-sign-icon  It was midnight, December 29th, 1999.      I was in an auditorium with hundreds of singing teenagers.     For months, the rumors had been growing, books had been written, radio talk show hosts had given interviews, and many intelligent people seemed genuinely concerned that when the clocks on computers around the world switched from 1999 to 2000, the computers could all simultaneously crash, and the world as we knew it would change drastically, perhaps catastrophically.       My parents sent my sister and I to the CSBC  State Youth Conference  anyway.      The SYC is  an annual 3-day event featuring live worship, gifted Christian speakers and preachers, discipleship classes, and an overwhelming amount of hideously loud music.      When the countdown was over, the year was 2000- and absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had happened.       Hundreds of over-tired, mildly disappointed teenagers returned to their h

  For my next few blog posts, I will be focusing on the top 5 things to know about living in the Kern River Valley, especially if you are originally from a well-established city. Nearly 16 years ago, I married my new husband and moved from my home in the Rosedale area of Bakersfield to Lake Isabella in the Kern River Valley. For many people, it is simply home- for me, the area has been a constant surprise.   The first thing to know about living in the Kern River Valley (this seems to bother women the most) is that there is limited shopping . You can buy food, and gas, and, depending on the economy and bravery of local merchants, there are sometimes pricey little boutiques in Kernville (the touristy, quaint, area of the KRV), but if you just want to go to Target or Old Navy to buy a pair of cheap, cute, summer shorts and actually try them on to make sure they look nice on you- you need to drive West an hour to Bakersfield. The road to Bakersfield is Highway 178, affectionally call