Beth Caldwell – The View From Here

Most of the time I would be ever so grateful to be one or two inches taller. For a short time when I was 10 years old, I towered above everyone else in my class at Sixth Street School. Alas, then my growth hormones decided they had better things to […]

There is that frozen moment in time between this second and the next when all possible scenarios play out as a movie in which I’m in a long, long hallway and being sucked toward an inevitable fate. . . . I was on a reconnaissance mission of sorts in my […]

I’m back in “Boot Camp,” where most of the food is green, protein is lean, and exercise takes a sweaty, heart-pumping front seat to an evening of good TV and a glass of wine (or two). Leave it to me to procrastinate until just four weeks before Christmas before putting […]

Life is busy and there isn’t much downtime. I used to think the busiest chunk of my life was when my kids were “littles,” but even then I found time to read a novel while they all played together at the park. Now I can’t remember the last time I […]

I just turned 56 years old. Where has the time gone? Where have I been all my life? How did I get here? Just like the song “7 Years” by Lucas Graham, I turned around and I was 10, chasing after crayfish shells along the creek and reading fairy tales […]

I’ve been away. I’d love to say it was because I was in the places of my heart—hiking the Pacific Coast trail or the magnificent mountain territory of Wyoming, or along a highway under the clear blue skies of Iceland. Nope. Alas, those destinations remain in my shoebox full of […]

I’m sitting here at my writing desk looking for inspiration in the tiny ball chocolates wrapped in tinfoil that were left over from the annual Easter egg hunt held here almost a month ago. Perhaps I should clarify and ’fess up. The chocolates weren’t exactly “leftovers.” I stashed a few […]

You never really know how much poop a dog puts out until the snow melts. And when it comes time to clean up, not even my vigorous, dive-into-anything grandchildren want to make that extra five bucks cleaning up dog poop. It seems they’d rather have a week’s worth of extra […]

I’d love to say that I’ve been in a warm southern destination for the last four weeks—soaking up the sun while handsome tanned men with six packs fed me fresh cooked seafood and glasses of ice tea. Alas, ’tis not the case. I’ve been right here in my neck of […]

I’ve been on a learning curve the last two weeks; mouth mostly closed, ears open, and listening to the stories of others—and through theirs was reminded of my own. I learned about literary boundaries, and I continue spinning a we