Erwin A. Thompson, my father, is the grandson of E. A. Riehl, who helped Sandy Freeman and his wife with the transition of moving from the bonds of slavery to the dignity of free people working for wages, bargaining for specified compensation for certain accomplishments, and becoming property owners. Pop wrote this poem after Jimmie…
What carries me over the water, this vast water between two vast waters? Clear Lake like an inland sea, contained and container. The Mississippi a winding snake of river connecting northern and southern territories before spilling into the Gulf of Mexico and on to the ocean? What carries me? A swan, polka-dotted or striped, perhaps,…
I needed to have a going away party. And, so I did. Atop one of the loveliest, furthest-sweeping views of Clear Lake, at the Riviera Heights Club House, 30 friends–artists, writers, musicians, actors–met to celebrate the day, our art connections, good food (from the Mexican Restaurant T&T at the Lake), home-made music, singing, dancing, poetry,…
Transition is a place all of its own. In between-ness. Being on the move, in motion. Sorting and packing. Yes this/not that. Clearing space, literally, for a new life cycle to follow, the unknown, fallow, yet fertile field yet to be plowed and sown. My studio has become a staging area for my move. The…
“They damned a river and called it a lake,” she said. So Austin, Texas and Alton, Illinois have this in common. Lake Merritt in Oakland and Clear Lake in Northern California are really estuaries…with inflows and outflows. A lake by any other name swims as sweet. A great pleasure in my life is the slow…
In just a few days I’m making a huge move in my life and where I live. I’ll be moving from Lake County in Northern California to St. Louis, Missouri where I’ll just be an hour away from my father. Pop, 91, lives just across the river in SW Illinois, about 6 miles upriver from…
(From “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary”) We’d fixed up the White Cottage really nice. When I came down with the mumps, Daddy stayed home, read to me and put in an indoor bathroom. Our family moved a few paces down to the Big Brown House from the White Cottage when the Great-Aunties died. When we first…
This is the visualization we used in my “Always Coming Home” workshop at the Land Full of Stories Conference for the Story Circle Network in San Marcos, Texas. Drop into your breath and come home to your body. Release places of tension. Go to the place where you feel most at home…either inside or outside…
She walks in beauty, like the night.—Lord Byron Walking the Beauty Way. –Navajo I stand in my Mother’s shoes—a few sizes too big for me. Mother is dead and gone. She has passed over. I stand in my sister’s shoes—a few sizes too big for me. Julia is dead and gone. She has passed over….
In a workshop on sacred space, I drew a rainbow vortex, holding 4-6 crayons in my hand at a time. I loved that part. Then, looking at my crayon drawing, I wrote this letter to the rainbow vortex. Later I cut the vortex into a spiral and pasted it into my journal, folding in switchbacks…