Continue reading Postcards from the Big Thaw →

No doubt there are sentient beings more miserable than a writer unable to write.  I just happen to be a writer, so it’s this cubicle of despair that’s most familiar to me. Writer’s block is usually transient. What I tumbled into three years ago was quite different—a prolonged period of depression and grief that left me at a loss for words. Any story, even a modest act of journalism, requires an energy and a confidence that I didn’t have and didn’t feel inclined to fake.

I still can’t watch the Tom Hanks movie “Castaway” without dissolving into tears at his  rain-drenched scene with Helen Hunt. It’s just so heartbreaking. But the film is also about perseverance and flotation. Somewhere in my dark night of the soul my camera became the paddle for my life raft, so to speak. Continue reading Sharing the Light →

One of the larger reasons I’m a Spokanite is because of our stunning inventory of trees. It’s hard to leave them behind for very long. I remember, as a kid, family car rides from Pasco, and how I felt when we reached the tree line near Sprague, and there began to absorb the enveloping greenness and the smell of pines. After the November storm that brought so many of them down, I’ve wanted to frame an homage to trees from photos I’ve taken the past few years. This is that. Treeshine.