by lisaduchene | Jan 6, 2023
On a sunny afternoon in September 2012, Chris Condello showed me the vacant lots and boarded-up, abandoned houses along a few city blocks in Wilkinsburg, a beleaguered part of Pittsburgh. In the mix, there were also some garden patches. A few disheveled properties appeared to be inhabited. Here and there, kids played outside in yards.
A young man and volunteer gardener, Chris saw beyond the neighborhood’s blight. He spoke of the lush and beautiful community gardens he’d been helping to plant and cultivate, some in community spaces, others in vacant lots and why they were important. The gardeners then shared the produce to help feed people in the neighborhood, body and soul.
I met Chris that day while on a magazine assignment, writing about the power of community gardens to build, heal and nourish. His is essential, life-sustaining work, as I see it. I drove back to central Pennsylvania feeling inspired, with plenty of material for my story — and certain Chris was a creative force, a bright light.
Chris is now a fine art photographer in western Pennsylvania. His landscape images are gorgeous and uplifting. My favorites capture the colors and light of sunsets and sunrises over the water. (Follow him on Facebook @chriscondellolandscapephotographer.)
Small & Mighty Light
Over the years, Chris and I kept in touch only via Facebook.
Then, in the surreal, dark days of the summer of 2020, Chris’ work again lifted me. I felt isolated and shaky that summer. Heavy with the collective grief and anxiety of the pandemic. Enraged and stunned by the brutal murder of George Floyd and violent, angry responses to the peaceful protests that followed. Bitter, divisive politics and dangerous misinformation. By late summer, heat waves, riots and wildfires in the West.
All very heavy and stifling. I am lucky in so many ways and not acutely affected. Still, I struggled, Maybe I am too tender and sensitive for this world and these times.
I was — still am — determined to stay positive, to keep moving, pivoting and creating.
How could I, as one small person, rise to do something good and useful?
Then I saw Chris’ images of fireflies, presumably on Facebook.
Chris had worked many summer nights to capture beautiful images of fireflies lighting the dark at a Pennsylvania state park.
“Fireflies” captured by landscape photographer Chris Condello, summer 2020.
Be the Light & Shine
The potential of many small lights collectively shining became a powerful focus and symbol for me. They reminded me of a scripture verse: “You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world.” I’d highlighted that verse when it appeared in the church bulletin and tacked it to our kitchen cork-board. But years had passed. The day-glo orange ink had faded.
I needed a reminder.
Those glowing fireflies struck me as a perfect metaphor. Shine no-matter-what. Little lights add up to a way through the darkness. With Chris’ permission, I licensed his image to use here on the site.
I forced myself to focus on the light, being the light and shining light, no matter how small it seems. Here is a little piece about the inspiring power of fireflies from winter 2021. I had learned this lesson while working to establish a community children’s garden, which is one reason Chris’ garden volunteering resonated so strongly. Helping to tend that patch of earth just for kids, a physical place for children to connect to nature and explore their sense of wonder, was the perfect antidote to an overload of dire information I was learning about the perils of climate change and decline of species.
So I’d learned the power of small, focused action. Then 2020 knocked me off my mooring and I needed a reminder.
Fireflies: Your Light Lifts Me. My Light Lifts You
Heading into the autumn, still feeling isolated, I asked two of my best friends who are also both creative, self-employed business women if they’d be interested in a weekly check-in. One owns a shop featuring beautiful, handmade artwork — paintings, pottery, jewelry, scarves, quilted table runners, woodwork — made by local artists. One is a non-profit finance consultant in Boston. (We call her the badass, because she always stands her ground for what she believes in.)
We call our group and dedicated time, “Fireflies.”
The model was simple and powerful: Your light lifts me. My light lifts you. We can amplify each other to shine brighter and stronger.
Your light lifts me. My light lifts you.
On our own, we can figure out a lot, but no one has it all figured out. We all struggle with a pain point, or weakness or blind spot.
Since then, we have a standing, weekly zoom call and an ongoing chat for whenever anyone wants to share a win, or a struggle, has a question — or needs to vent or be held accountable to her goals. We invited a Central Pennsylvania painter, advocate and champion of conservation.
The chemistry has been perfect, the support and fellowship invaluable. We hold each other accountable. Good stuff.
But when we can get together in person, it’s even more powerful — and a fantastic, raucous time.
Honoring the Creative Tug
Soon, I felt another creative call and set a goal to re-connect with the owner of Hameau Farm in Big Valley. We’d met once, long ago, through mutual friend Susan Nicholas, a distinguished plein air painter who teaches every spring and fall at the Hameau Farm retreat for artists.
I wondered: What about a retreat for creative business women? Hmmmm…. And Hameau seemed like it could be the perfect place.
Owned by farmer Audrey “Gay” Rodgers, Hameau Farm is a retreat space for artists, girls’ summer camp and working dairy farm known for its Plum Bottom Ayrshire cows.
So early in 2022, Gay Rodgers and I started talking. Last October, we co-hosted and tested a small-scale, invitation-only event for creative business women called “Fireflies in the Fall at Hameau Farm.” I planned the programming to be a balance of business smarts and creativity, a balance of structure, fellowship and on-your-own time. And I worked hard on the details to keep the cost reasonable.
We shared what’s working for us and helped each other with what’s not working. We brainstormed. And we enjoyed fellowship, conversation, laughter and stories, nourishment through beautiful food (& expertly hand-crafted firefly cocktails!) — in a gorgeous farm setting. Incredible.
A Magical, Peaceful Place
The farm has a magic all its own, the careful management over decades of a strong, capable and creative woman. Grazing cows. A meandering stream and roaming peacock named Pierre. A big, goofy-drooly St. Bernard named Ludwig. An art studio with a deck looking over the fields into beautiful Kishacoquillas “Big” Valley.
Our group enjoyed many artful touches and delicious food within view of the fall sunset and evening cow parade as the heifers come in from the pasture. I’m already dreaming and planning for Fireflies in the Fall, 2023 — Oct. 20-22— and a few “Fireflies” dinners at the farm. So you’ll be hearing more about this on the blog. Send me a message if you’d like more info or to be added to the “Fireflies” email list!
Faith in the Light
Does this work save the world from its wicked problems? Is it “enough”? No, not on its own, in isolation.
But I wholeheartedly believe in all the good that can come from a bouncing, collective light, and its power to push the world forward to a greater good, to be more just and beautiful and loving. This faith and focus helps me face the reality of the news, and the problems reported by responsible journalists and stay open-minded about finding solutions.
I will not look away from the brokenness of the world — nor will I let it swallow me. I will always seek out the beautiful among the broken, like those gorgeous sunsets and sunrises Chris captures with his camera and eye.
Let’s go back to those patches of gardens in those couple of blocks in Wilkinsburg, part of Pittsburgh. No one will ever know if a child hungry for love and food had a sweet, ripe tomato to eat on a summer night because Chris planted a few tomato plants in a place many people would write-off and forget.
I can’t prove it. But I still believe it — and in the possibility of those tomatoes reaching more than one kid, maybe two or three or more kids and that those kids felt loved and nourished by the fruits of Chris’ labor.
And I believe in the power of that little patch of flowers to have given respite to someone walking by with a heavy heart.
We don’t know all the places our light goes or who it touches — and that’s exactly my point. That’s not our job.
Our job is to do our best to be the brightest, strongest light we can be. To shine. To share.
What way do you do that? How can we all do more of that?
To ask for guidance then answer the muse and idea, the creative urge to explore this story or connection, or that new kind of gathering or event as best I can.
My job is to do my work and have faith that it matters.
Which is exactly what Chris — now an honorary “firefly” — was doing in the community gardens and now does every day when he shares a beautiful image full of light and color on social media.
Maybe this is HOW we love each other — which is our most important job in our short time here. See the light. Be the light. Bring some light to someone else.
by lisaduchene | Dec 22, 2022
I stood frozen with my empty plate before a buffet table loaded with platters and serving bowls of roasted turkey, stuffing, green beans, macaroni and cheese. Probably potatoes, too — but I can’t remember.
Feeling numb, I detached from the gathering’s conversations and festive energy. Stuck in hurting. People around me blurred together. Then a man’s words broke through my haze: “You just gonna stand there? Or get something to eat?”
Apologizing for holding up the line, I scooped food onto my plate for Thanksgiving dinner, the first meal of the holiday season I muddled through.
My then-husband and I had just separated. In my bones, I knew it was over and splitting was the right thing. Still, a necessary grief swallowed me. The only way through was a bit at a time, patches of pushing myself forward or freezing in place and many stretches of locking the doors and letting myself fall apart.
That Thanksgiving, I drove the few hours home and wept in my mom’s arms. My stepfather’s family welcomed me into their gatherings. By Christmas, I thought I was so much “better” — but my aunt still remembers my sadness on Christmas Eve, 12 years later.
No one told me to cheer up. No one told me what I should be doing or feeling.
Resist the Pressure of Holidays
It’s OK to muddle through the holidays. Maybe you just lost someone you love or a relationship. Maybe you know this will be the last holiday season with a loved one. Maybe you are blue around holiday time, recalling a loss or trauma — or even for no apparent reason.
It’s OK.
Resist the pressure to force joy or to be perfect or do it all. Skip some things. The holidays will come and go. Give yourself permission to feel all of it. Know the painful feelings will pass with time. Know you are held and loved — by forces seen and unseen. Hang in there.
This beautiful time can also be excruciating for people who are grieving, who have suffered a loss of any kind — whether a brother, sister, child or parent, a marriage, a job. Even a cherished pet, our best friends.
Our culture tends to be taboo about loss and grief. We sweep it away. We ignore it. We urge people to hide it. Let’s not ruin the holidays.
But loss is a part of life none of us can avoid, and it never takes a holiday. Holiday joy and cheer is not true, real and honest or even loving if it’s adding pressure to people already in pain, or leaving people alone in their pain.
Let’s be sure people who are hurting know they are not alone.
Connecting in Genuine and New Ways
Many people who have recently lost a family member are in my heart and thoughts — including the man who that Thanksgiving teased and snapped me back to the buffet line, nudging me forward, and his sister, who cooked the food. They lost their mother just a few weeks ago. She was a lovely, funny and strong woman who made sure I felt welcome in her family always, and particularly that holiday season.
Last year at this time, I was texting with my cousin — who is like a little brother to me — about all the planned festivities we were looking forward to. His Christmas was in Georgia. Mine was in Pennsylvania. A few texted words picked up a conversation we’d been having for years about fathers and daughters, projects in our old house, our shared joy of growing plants and gardens.
This spring, he died suddenly. Gone. Dammit. This morning, I thought a lot about him, speaking some messages out into the air, hoping he gets them. Love you, little brother. Hope you are at peace.
Let’s Be Real
So let’s be sure to gather and celebrate these holidays in a way that genuinely connects with people and be OK with any sadness and the full range of emotions.
And please, if you are grieving, give yourself permission to muddle through. Let yourself rest. Tune out the pressures of perfect and happy holiday time. Let’s be real.
Take what you need most from the holiday season. This year, maybe that’s the break from the routine, or the comfort found in music and candlelight (or the macaroni and cheese on the buffet table), connection to loved ones and a friend’s shoulder to lean upon. Many people find comfort in animals and nature.
The truth about the first holiday season after my first marriage ended is that I was OK. I was fine, doing what I needed to do to be healthy by expressing my sadness and anger, though it wasn’t pretty or fun to witness. I was lucky to be among people who loved me and lean into their strength. That connection sustained me until I could again feel true joy and peace. That’s what I most remember and celebrate.
by lisaduchene | Dec 2, 2022
This Christmas tree needs a feather boa, don’t you think?
My holiday decorating day-dreaming has fixated on feathers since a tree decked in buff-colored feather-y ornaments, white paper stars and beeswax pinecones graced the cover of Country Living magazine in 2013. (I save every issue.)
Below that tree, gift boxes wrapped in forest and fern designs with silky teale and pale green ribbon. Mmmmm…
That lovely, natural look had me swooning. Rustic, elegant and unexpected. Inspiring.
My quirky mind — no-doubt brainwashed by all the pretty pictures in magazines and on social media — starts the holiday prep in earnest by envisioning how it will look.
Provided I don’t burn out my time and budget reaching for magazine perfection, the spark for my holiday spirit is welcome. Reaching for that vision is a form of self-care, the necessary prep for hosting.
I love to host, and often make notes on what worked and what didn’t and the timeline for next year as soon as Thanksgiving and Christmas are over. (Actually, I’m kind of always thinking of the next holiday, how it will look and what needs to be done by when. Must have learned something about crushing the monkey mind last year!)
I’ve learned I need to get this done to move onto planning the menus, shop for gifts, wrap the gifts, cook and bake.
Where do you start?
My stepfather starts by making cookies, using his mother’s recipes. Russian tea cakes. Jam thumbprints. Snickerdoodles. Boxes upon boxes of cookies.
I’d guess musicians start by dreaming of what music they will play or sing this year.
My spark is visual. The colors. The materials: Pine and birch. Winterberry and bronze. Feathers and crisp paper.
The lights. The runner for our Thanksgiving table. (Teale velour this year with tea lights, white pumpkins, and tiny metallic pumpkins in bronze, copper and gold.)
Craving ways to use what’s in the garden, I dried loads of hydrangea for wreaths and centerpieces this year.
How about my grandfather’s handmade pinecone wreath? Where should that go this year? What color ribbon? Should I still get a balsam wreath?
I’m too thrifty and stubborn to simply order those feather-y ornaments at $13 a pop (and that was in 2013!) Nor do I get a dozen balsam wreaths so there is one in every window, like all the fancy magazine pictures. Nope.
And I always prefer artisan-made, natural, handmade, vintage, thrifted, re-purposed to the mass market. This year, I caved and ordered some teale fabric and those little metallic pumpkins from Amazon in October so I could mentally move on from table decorations and focus on the rest of the Thanksgiving prep!
This image shows:
– a white pumpkin from a local grower,
– a white taper candle in a clear glass holder from the thrift store,
– a white tealight in clear glass holder
– a teale velour table runner (Amazon)
– a tiny metallic pumpkin (Amazon)
– a pumpkin decorated in copper rosettes bought on clearance (90% off!) last night from a craft store, while I was looking around for a feather-y tree garland!
– our 12-foot Amish wedding table, naturally aged by years of service, dark drink rings and a little dark stain, from my friend’s vintage shop
– a black vintage chair from my friend’s vintage shop
– a hand-me-down dark brown dining chair
– the Christmas tree, lit and awaiting attention!
From Feather-Foraging to Feel-Good Gatherings
My stash includes wild turkey feathers and a fantail a friend who hunts gave me. And I bought half a yard of teale and bronze feather trim this fall.
Both are too dark.
Maybe this is the year for the wheat-colored and bronze-y feathers on the tree?! We’ll see.
Because — the real focus must shift to how the holidays feel around here for all of us. And I can’t wear myself out searching for feathers!
When our family and friends visit through the holidays, will they feel warm and welcome and comfortable the second they walk through the door? That’s my plan. Even if it’s a little zany right before a meal and I’m delegating and reminding? Are the water glasses full? Let’s light the candles!
It felt so good to hear our family chatting around our Thanksgiving table during dinner, then see the little kids running around and laughing on a scavenger hunt my mom planned for them. Everyone seemed comfortable.
My mom was sick over Easter, so I was thrilled she could and my stepdad could come for Thanksgiving.
I love the teamwork of prepping a holiday meal: My husband roasts the turkey and makes the mashed potatoes, my mom cooks the brussels sprouts and makes the mushroom gravy. I make the pies, the stuffing and dress the table.
Twinkle Lights Chase Away the Blues
It feels so good to have the Christmas tree here already with the lights strung. A patch of blues often hits me after Thanksgiving and I fall behind on prepping for Christmas. Read Kicking the Holiday Blues.
Once the tree is up, I feel so much better. My goal this year was to have the tree up and lit by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend.
So I was thrilled that the sweet young couple that bought Tuckaway Tree Farm near McAlevy’s Fort is selling trees and hosted a tree-tagging event in mid-November. It helped me plan ahead.
I had to push myself a little, since it was so rainy and gloomy out. And that’s exactly the point. These short, dark days can dampen spirits for a lot of us.
For centuries, people across many cultures have used evergreens to help them push through the darkest time of year, and remind them of the green growth to come.
We crave the beautiful. We crave the natural. We crave the light.
According to History.com: Martin Luther, is believed to have first added lighted candles to an evergreen tree. The 16th century Protestant reformer was struck by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens while walking hone one winter evening, composing a sermon. He erected a tree in the main room of his home and wired its branches with lighted candles to share the scene for his family.
The truth is … this tree is perfectly beautiful right now, just with lights.
That’s enough. That’s plenty.
(And I’m still going to look around for some feathers, at the right price, of course. Not too much longer. Just a couple more places…)
by lisaduchene | Nov 10, 2022
Thank you to our farmer-neighbor whose life’s work was tending the fields I see and admire every day as they change colors and textures with the seasons. May your heaven be free of worry and full of ease and good land.
For a stretch of warm, humid August days, a fragrance enveloped me as I stepped out behind our house at dusk. The scent, pleasantly light, green and sweet, reminded me of fresh-cut hay. But it was not. Nor was it the scent of fresh-cut oak slabs my husband splits in the summer and stacks out back into a tidy, sturdy pile to cure for winter.
That aroma of green firewood reminds me of pickles. Or maybe pickle barrels.
Either way, this mystery scent was different. Sweet and ripe.
Ripe is my best word for August in Central Pennsylvania. The soil’s richness reveals itself in a burst of delicious, flavor-packed peppers, tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, peaches — and more treasures over-flowing at farm stands. The fields and grasses, trees and crops all ripen into deep, sugary greens.
My nose led me into our backyard, toward the mountain ridge where the sun rises. Then into the grassy cemetary behind our woodpile and to its fenced rear boundary with the cornfield beyond, where thousands of yellow ears upon bright green stalks in perfect rows hug the swells and contours of the land.
It was the corn, ripe and bursting with sugars from the alchemy of rain, sunshine and carbon dioxide. Had I never noticed this scent before in the decade since I’ve lived here? Perhaps the ripe corn in this field has never been quite so sweet and strong.
Or, maybe my mind was playing tricks, working its way through a loss.
Unfinished Work
In mid-August, the farmer who planted this corn and tended these fields died suddenly in his late 50s. I don’t know many details, nor would they be mine to tell.
We spoke twice. Once when a neighbor and I returned his friendly farm dog that had wandered off the farm and up to our house, near the busy road, and once on a spring Saturday as he prepared to plant this field.
We talked about the land, our worries about America and just a bit about my work with a land trust that preserves farmland.
“He was passionate about farming and loved to see things grow. He was an excellent caretaker of the land,” says my neighbor-farmer’s obituary.
I hope I told him how beautiful his fields are to me, and how much I appreciate seeing them every day in every season, from the mucky browns of spring to the velvet green of August.
But I can’t be certain. I looked ahead to future conversations, not realizing that would be our last.
These Fields of Gold
A season later, the farmer was gone. The last crop of cornstalks he planted turned brown and brittle. In October, the stalks became a papery, pale gold blanket stretching along the valley bottom to the horizon. Fields of gold.
I remembered my friend, Lee, a beautiful, fierce and strong woman who loved the sea and taught me so much about loss and life. Lee, like my neighbor-farmer, died in mid-life. Unfinished.
So many miles to go — or so we thought. She had some warning and planned her funeral, a reminder to me even now of her strength.
In a little church in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, according to Lee’s funeral plan, a lovely friend of hers sang an a cappella version of “Fields of Gold,” Sting’s song from the 90s. Such a beautiful song. (You’ll find a YouTube link to it at the end of this post.)
I think of Lee, especially when I hear the lyric.
You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold
Lee helped me learn to accept loss as a part of life, and to let that reality enrich my life, inspire me to fully live.
Lee would say we all know deep down how to grieve our losses, that to help a friend or neighbor who is grieving means to quietly honor their process, what they already know how to do. We don’t need to find a reason, or the silver lining.
This morning, a thin layer of white frost covered the grass beside the fields and crunched below my feet as our dogs sniffed and snuffled. Another farmer harvested the corn in October’s final days, machinery humming into the night.
Season of Remembrance
November has arrived with its wash of gold, gratitude and clarifying light. (Read November’s Light Offers Rich Reminders of Love and Loss.)
The season of remembrance is upon us, reminders of loss in the falling leaves, the emerging browns in the landscape. We’ll gather in two weeks over a rich feast to celebrate gratitude, family and abundance. Many families will be keenly aware of who is missing. I am thinking now of my family-of-origin. We lost a man with a big heart, who died before reaching mid-life. Unfinished. A son, cousin, nephew, brother, husband, father.
This life moves so swiftly. It is so temporary. And yet, what we do and how we live matters.
Every morning, when I walk back to the edge of my farmer-neighbor’s field and look over the rolling layers of greens and brown that stretch to the base of the mountain, I feel rich and lucky. Fields of gold surround me here, reminding me to live and love, big and full, and of the inevitable losses woven into each of us. My conservation-science brain recognizes monoculture and is aware of its hazards. Our whole world needs more biodiversity to survive. And yet, these fields and the caretaking and love of land they represent are nonetheless beautiful to me.
To watch as the trees on the mountain reveal the seasons, and reflect that morning’s pattern of clouds and light anchors me as did the currents of the Kennebec River near the Maine coast, reminding me to breathe it all in, and of my small part within the natural order.
I stand in awe of farmers who tend the land and feed us, body and soul.
Thank you to our farmer-neighbor who spent so much of his life tending the fields I admire every day. May your heaven be effortless, worry-free and full of good land. Fears of drought or flood, wandering dogs or the cost of fuel can’t touch you now.
by lisaduchene | Nov 3, 2022
Welcome!
Or, perhaps: Welcome back to this place where every season holds the spirit of Thanksgiving.
Here, I celebrate year-round with stories and reflections.
My “Thanksgiving in February” mindset is:
• My choice to rejoice daily for all the gifts, particularly the gifts of kindness, the life- and soul-sustaining natural world, for those who love us, all that we love and the events that make us.
• This growing collection of stories from my search for peace. They are all love stories in one way or another. I share them to offer hope. If my family-of-origin can make some peace … well, then there’s hope for a lot of families!
• My core story of making peace with my often-absentee Dad.
And, of course, pie!
Read more about Thanksgiving in February here:
I am returning to posting here after being away these last few months. I’d reached a crossroads in this work, needed to step back and had some other projects demanding attention. It seemed a good time to take a break.
While away, I took some time to rest and recharge, remembering how essential rest is to my mental and emotional health. Two very wise, bright lights and thought leaders I follow, Brene Brown and Krista Tippett, took rests this summer and it seemed wise.
Plus …
During the summer, we also had a major home renovation here that re-worked the second-floor of our 1860s home, where my studio is located. Lots of dust. Lots of noise. Lots of hard work for our beloved contractor and his crew.
I’m full of gratitude and awe for our contractor, and all of his experience and tender, loving care of old houses, and so thrilled with our new, beautiful spaces and layout.
I’m also quite grateful for the return of quiet and solitude during my work days.
Over that break, I also called in a top-notch, pro crew of web developers to dig into the nitty-gritty of this site, thanks to a grant award for creative entrepreneurs.
The web pros have given it this site tender loving care, to look and function at a level far above anything I could reach on my own. (Thank you Ryan and Troy. I’d much rather be writing!)
A dear friend built this site as a gift, ahead of my TEDxPSU talk in 2019, telling the Thanksgiving in February core story. (Thankyou Cristina.) Since then, I re-designed and re-built it, crashing around with software and plug-ins and a whole bunch of other stuff I can neither name nor understand. I always had a hunch it looked OK, but didn’t function well.
You may notice some changes, as we keep tinkering.
Would you drop me a line and let me know about your visit? How it’s all working for you?
Here are all the ways to connect.
Finally …
Here we are already, starting a new season of Thanksgiving and heading into the holiday season and a New Year around the corner. A time to reflect and be hopeful.
These times are so challenging — and quite remarkable. Full of promise. What an incredible time to be alive.
I am deeply inspired, yet troubled by the state of our world, and I don’t think I’m alone — though we all may see things quite differently.
I am craving peace. Real, true and lasting peace. Maybe you are too?
My job, I’ve come to believe, is not to sit here and wait for it to happen.
This isn’t “somebody” else’s work, but our work. Each of us. Right now.
We start (or continue), I think, by finding and nurturing peace in our own lives, and putting it out into the world from there. Do the work you love. Heal your broken parts and wounds. Be with people you love.
Follow your heart’s call and it will lead to peace.
From there — and I really believe this — we can find and hopefully build upon some peace in our families, in our culture, and, I hope, in our American family. Let’s explore this and see where we go.
Thanks for being here. I’ve missed this!
Remember: Please drop me a note on your experience here. I love to connect with readers.
Take good care of you. I wish you peace. See you next week.
And if you like what you’re reading here, please share!
