Beth Caldwell – The View From Here

“It’s like Chinese water torture—slow and relentless,” he said, sour-toned on the dragging carcass of winter. I couldn’t have put it better myself in 500 words. But what the heck, I can try. The weather has played me out and I don’t play out easily. I don’t give up easily, […]

“When you don’t know what to do, get still. Get very still until you do know what to do.” Oprah Winfrey offered this advice to graduates at Stanford University in California during her commencement address there in 2008. And she was right. If you are quiet long enough to listen, […]

First of all, I think “Old Man Winter” should read the book, “The Language of Letting Go.” I think the crusty cold curmudgeon has some serious issues. Secondly, if he doesn’t let go soon, I will put on my “Gandalf” hat, slam my wooden scepter into an axe-handle deep snow […]

I threw myself into deep snow on Saturday and lay there for 20 minutes in the silence of my neck of the woods. I had just finished snow blowing, and I was tired and once again drained of any enthusiasm for winter. In fact, I’d had a run in with […]

Van Morrison is singing “School of Hard Knocks” as I stare at my laptop screen dumbfounded at the blank page that is idea-deprived. I do have material to call upon for inspiration, including “Better than Sex–Chocolate Principles to Live By,” followed by the tried and true Mark Nepo and Melody […]

If I would have been asked one week ago how I was feeling, I’d have used up an entire Kleenex box explaining my failure to launch what I thought was a simple plan. I was in “woe is me-ville” because I had to admit to myself and to others that […]

I’m reading a very good book called “Into the Wild” by Jon Kraukauer, which chronicles Chris McCandless, an adventurer who sought a simple life of solitude that did not end well in the Alaskan wilderness. The novel has been good reading on a winter’s day snuggled up in my living […]

I fell in love with snowshoeing in 1972 when I was 12 years old. I loved the activity most because it was something we always did together as a family. The wooden “Beavertail” snowshoes with leather belted bindings were too big, and my winter boots often got stuck in the […]

“Drive south until the butter melts.” I heard that saying last week for the first time, and I dare say I was charmed by the enticing “get in your car and go” imagery it evoked. I could use a warm little holiday like that right about now. Heaven knows if […]

So here we are in the deep freeze dungeon of mid-January, when exposed skin can freeze in five minutes. The cold bears down upon us like a giant lead blanket and it will not be moved. Cars left too long outside in this abominable deep freeze either don’t start at […]

“Not what you have, but what you use. Not what you see, but what you choose. Not what seems fair, but what is true. “Not what you dream, but what you do. Not what you take, but what you give. Not as you pray, but as you live. “These are […]

“Millie” the cat has been living here for about 13 months and we are joined at the hip. It’s been a rewardingly mutual friendship thus far, and her life in this neck of the woods has been luxurious to say the least. This much I know is true. If I […]