Category: Writing

Writing

The Sunday Letter Writing Project

annbh356Leave a comment
drawn image of wildflower shop with bicycle propped out front and logo for the Sunday Letter Writing Project
hand holding pen poised above stationary on a wooden table; image from the Sunday Letter Writing Project

I am pondering whether to commit to The Sunday Letter Project. There is the lure of possibility in making a pledge to faraway shopkeepers in England; to write one letter each Sunday, in what they describe as “an act of reflection, connection and calm.”

I learned about this project, which includes nearly 12,000 participants from around world, in the Yarnology eNews. Gaby, one of the Winona store owners, has personally made the pledge. And, she has gone all in as the local yarn store now offers a whimsical selection of cards and stickers, as well as encouragement to yarn store customers (like me) to take the pledge.

I suspect the impetus for The Sunday Letter Project may have germinated (at least partially) as a marketing approach when the owners of the Wildflower Inspiration Co. moved their stationary business from the kitchen table to a brick-and-mortar store in Cheltenham, England. But they also describe how the concept emerged from numerous discussions with customers commenting on the lost art of letter writing. How, in an age when email is considered old fashion and texts are thumbed rapidly, with partial thoughts, generic emojis, misspelled words, and impractical or nonexistent punctuation, writing a letter conveys friendship and connection. Their website states: “We started Wildflower Illustration Co. in 2015 because we believe in the power of a handwritten note to brighten someone’s day or capture a shared memory.”

But I am still in the thinking stage.  The lack of readily available supplies does not explain my hesitation. I cannot use the excuse that before beginning I would need to go shopping for stationery and stamps. I have two desk drawers full of an artistic selection of blank notecards and an unusually large supply of discounted postage purchased from Forever Stamps. No, my hesitation comes from wondering if I would have enough to say in a weekly letter without defaulting to Minnesota weather reports or having the letter read like bulleted task list.

Within my family there are motivational examples to spur on my letter writing efforts and encourage me to set aside any worries that inspiration might fall short. Nearly every week, Momma writes to her two sisters, and my aunts respond regularly with their family news. Their routine began in the 1940s when Momma went to Washington, DC as a “war girl.” Unlike their correspondence, with letters regularly going back and forth over eight decades, I would not expect the recipients of a Sunday letter to respond in kind. Rather, a letter would say – I am thinking of you. An opportunity to re-connect. A simple act of possibility.

I know the excitement of finding a “real” letter with the turn of the mailbox key, not a catalog, or an appeal for money, or an advertisement. Just days ago, I received a beautiful, 5×7 inch card written on two sides offering appreciation for a short sympathy note. That this individual, amid her deep sorrow from losing her father, would sit down and write not the obligatory funeral home card with just the name of the deceased, but an entire letter was humbling. And inspirational. To think that by taking the pledge to participate in The Sunday Letter Writing Project that I might slow down and find balance or brighten someone else’s day is indeed an act of possibility.  Maybe it is time to join 11, 575 other Sunday letter writers in the possibility of connection.

Graphics: The Wildflower Illustration Co. and The Sunday Letter Writing Project, Cheltenham, England.

Writing

Paying Attention

annbh356Leave a comment
black and white photo of ABH with book

There is a story in my family about how, in the months leading up to Christmas 1962, my mother hid even the waste threads snipped after sewing the seams of an outfit she was making for me.  This was because I was such a nosy child, although I might say exceptionally curious or extremely attentive.

Earlier that fall, she had sewn a blue and white checked cape (reminiscent of scenes from The Sound of Music) for my best friend, Melinda.  That I already had a matching cape, did not sooth my desire for another something new.  And, with Christmas lists growing, I felt sure that my wardrobe had been forgotten.  As it happened, Momma only worked on my surprise gift when curious eyes were not around – during the school day and after bedtime.  Then, she would carefully put everything away, not even leaving the bobbin in the bobbin case of the sewing machine for fear that I might notice her using a different color thread and ask what she was making.  Her clandestine approach to that sewing project did give me a Christmas surprise.

Over the years, I have found practical applications for my attention to detail without sliding precariously into OCD obsessions.  From my days as a library page shelf-reading and putting books back in Dewey order to participating in library funding formula discussions, the outcome of which eventually become library legislation.

While paying attention is a useful skill when building a house or planning a new church, there can be downsides.  At the beginning of this second-time-around administration, I had planned to stay better informed by increasing the number of news sources and journalists I read or viewed each day.  And while I did this in January, I was quickly overwhelmed.  I found my logical brain simply could not manage the overt inconsistencies from day-to-day; contradictory statements or actions that sometimes occurred only hours apart or even spoken within the same paragraph.  By mid-February, I was relying solely on Stephen Colbert’s nightly monologue and The Late Show political guests for my news.  Obviously not a practical approach when striving to be an informed voter, and my news-junky to comedy-only approach to current events needed modification. As I shared in an early February blog post, “Red Hat Resilience” I now limit my news gathering and then balance the harshness of that day’s events with reading poetry.

Paying attention also has advantages like realizing after just one row of the sweater I am knitting (283 stitches wide) that I had been so attentive to the storyline of The Brokenwood Mysteries episode we were watching that I knitted the same wrong side row twice.  While not easily visible on my needles, this error would definitely have revealed an ugly break in the featured lace and cable design of the finished garment.  Today’s task – TINK (that is – knit backwards) the incorrect row and probably not while watching Acorn TV.

There are days when I prefer not to pay attention to the “real world.”  When I adjust the banded shades to allow in daylight but, still drawn, create a cocoon.  When the only activity I want to undertake is knitting.  Or knitting and baking.  Or knitting, baking, and reading.  When I am tempted to let every phone call (other than Momma’s number) go to voicemail.  And I admit there are days when I ignore my Gmail inbox.  But that always has unwanted consequences as I still need to read a flood of building correspondence about window placement, or the preferred number of stoves and refrigerators in the church kitchen, or the weight of 98-solar panels on the west roof.

And so, the challenge continues.  Just as yesterday’s vernal equinox provided celestial balance with equal hours of day and night, I will continue to strive for equilibrium – between staying informed about the harsh realities of US politics and our sedate day-to-day life on Solstice Place.

Writing

A Day of Prayer and Fasting

annbh356Leave a comment
raised fist painted in the two-tone blues and white north star of the Minnesota state flag

Unlike that classic line from Star Trek, proclaimed in synthesized Borg speech, that “resistance is futile” I still believe that resistance can effect change. It may be a Pollyanna-like personality flaw but, even in these uncertain days when thousands of armed, masked men terrorize Minnesota streets more reminiscent of a gun toting, wild west movie than 21st century modern life, I need to believe hope is not pointless.

Today, on this day of prayer and fasting, I will join thousands around my state in non-violent moral action. We will gather by ones and twos and thousands with the message: Ice Out of Minnesota NOW! Prayer vigils will be held from Bemidji to Blue Earth, in Mankato, Minneapolis, and Moorhead, as well as my town of Rochester. With rallies and marches, despite dangerous frigid temperatures; with fasting and prayers offered heavenward we send the message that the terrorization of quiet residential neighborhoods must stop. We send the message that trolling school yards is unacceptable. We send the message that using kindergarteners as bait to then ship father and five-year old Liam to Texas is wrong.

In the past, I always felt comfortable and proud expressing my constitutional rights. I believed that our most revered public text – the Constitution and the Bill of Rights – would keep me safe. I believed my First Amendment rights of free speech, assembly, and petitioning the government would protect me. I believed, as a gray-haired, white female, I would never be perceived as a threat. The shocking violent murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis disproved my hypothesis that my age and the color of my skin will see me home safely.

A natural reaction would be to stay home, tucked in like a child after a bedtime story. But no matter how snug the blanket may be, there are still wild things under the bed, and those monsters are shredding our representative democracy. And so, I join other Minnesotans and supporters from around the country to say: Ice Out of Minnesota NOW!

Writing

Labyrinth: a meditation on resistance in troubled times

annbh356Leave a comment
stone labyrinth set in a grassy meadow framed by tall trees

Three hundred ninety-eight stones planted on a grassy Rochester hillside.

Three hundred ninety-eight stones laid from outside to inside in a gentle arching path – a single path intended to provide a walker with a quiet, meditative journey. One sweeping movement – a unicursal path. And, even as it winds back and forth, that one-way is clear, never a maze of confusion.

I thrust the tip of my shovel between grass and concrete. Time and dirt, weight and roots resist my efforts. Another thrust, a little deeper, and the tempered steel blade coupled with the force of my muscle breaks the resistance and the stone moves. Another thrust with the shovel edge more deeply planted, the ground as fulcrum, and the concrete paver is free. I step to the next and repeat the process, breaking resistance another 58 times.

With gentle force we broke the earth’s resistance. We moved three hundred ninety-eight labyrinth stones from a grassy hillside. Now they rest on a different hillside while we wait for warm days to lay another circular path that will encourage quiet contemplation of resistance and resilience.

Photo credit: First UU Building Our Future-Beyond Ourselves, 2025

New House · Writing

Embracing Change: Our Move After 40 Years

annbh3561 Comment
forest green headboard and yellow-orange stained glass lamp shade
whisical car clock, wooden sculpture, and green plant

We kept waiting to be sad. For that tsunami of nostalgia to overwhelm. After-all, we were leaving our first house, our abode of 40 years, where we had celebrated the births of nieces and nephews and mourned the death of beloved family and friends; undertook remodeling and renovation projects, planted and transplanted blueberry bushes and rhubarb, prepared countless meals (the menus for which ran the gamut from a quick bowl of popcorn to gourmet auction prep).

One person suggested that our move was not just a move but a life choice and that distinction felt accurate. This was a decision arrived at over time, necessitated by health challenges and softened by the hundreds of details that comprised our construction project which also served as salve to lighten the mental soreness of loss. While we missed the opportunity of a topping off ceremony on Solstice Place, we carefully monitored construction progress – from the hole in the ground to the final walk-through.  Each visit rooted us in the “rightness” of this change.

We spent a comfortable first night in the new house on September 25. We placed the bed slats on floor, having first put down an old flannel sheet to protect the new LVF (luxury vinyl flooring), followed by the twin springs and the king comfort mattress. The result – a tad lower than sleeping on the couch but higher than a futon. This odd predicament, of being bed-less (that is without a frame) was due to our decision to have the two antique metal bedstead that were once in my Grandma’s house, stripped via glass bead blasting and then dipped to powder coat them a rich forest-green. During their 100+ years, the color has gone from chocolate brown (the color in my childhood, as well as Momma’s memories of her early years in the 4th street house) to yellow, to creamy peach, and now to forest-green. Momma estimates these may have been her parents’ first purchase after arriving in the U.S.A. from Switzerland in July 1922, as by October Grandma was giving birth to Billie and most certainly had a bed for this home delivery.

Now, a month after closing, we have most (not quite all) of the boxes unpacked and flattened. Finding a place for everything has required expanding our decluttering skills yet again and each time we cannot find space we admit that we simply have too much stuff.

Still to be done – placing our eclectic collection of prints, paintings, and objets d’art. Once that is complete Solstice Place will be open for visits.

New House · Writing

We have a hole!

annbh3562 Comments
large trough in dirt with houses in background
bare dirt trough with orange spray paint
large dirt pile and yellow earth moving equipment

Since March 6, when we selected Solstice Place as the location for our new house, we have scouted the neighborhood with a close eye for any progress on our lot. And today was the day for changes! The trenches have been dug for the footings and a nearby pile of dirt rests ready for future grading. Meanwhile, while waiting for the actual construction to begin, our days have been full of decisions, decisions, decisions.

Our first appointment was at the lumberyard for interior and exterior doors, door hardware, windows, and a hand-railing for the front steps.  This visit gave us a sense of what would follow.  With each visit there were offerings as bid and then the possibility to make choices from a broader selection outside the basic budget.  For example:  we were happy with the door levers as bid but opted for a different style kitchen faucet with the cost difference being our responsibility.

The tile store definitely lived up to the “and more” part of its title as we selected birch cabinets, granite countertops, sinks, LVP flooring, and (yes) tile for the bathrooms and the kitchen backsplash.  We needed two visits for all those decisions.  We even stayed within our allowance for flooring and tile but, I must admit, we went a smidge over in the cabinet category.  

As our construction package includes new stainless-steel appliances, we will leave our functional white appliances on First Street. But even at the appliance store there is a lot to consider: slide in or free-standing stove? freezer on the bottom, side, or top? range hood or cabinet fan? Plus, double checking consumer ratings for reliability.

It took two appointments to determine the location of all the disc lights, although we were steadfast in our choice of decorative blue fixtures for the kitchen and dining room, the brushed nickel for the bathrooms, and the exterior, prairie-style lighting.  From lighting we progressed to plumbing – from the kitchen faucet to the shower heads from grab-bars to towel racks the choices we made this morning will (hopefully) be the last, at least for a couple of days.  But, in the meantime — we have a hole!

Writing

Drawn to the Library

annbh3562 Comments

I am a librarian and unabashedly proud of my lifelong career choices. While I was a frequent library visitor as a child, my passion for libraries began when I was ten. During the summer of 1962, between 4th and 5th grades, my mother and a group of her friends worked tirelessly, under the supervision of Mrs. Berlin (the head of children’s services at the public library) to collect and catalog a new school library. It was cobbled together from eight disparate classroom collections and a generous selection of new titles acquired during a successful parish-wide book sale. When school began that fall, along with my best friends Cindy and Jeannie, I began helping in the library after school. As that academic year ended, the PTA sponsored a school-wide contest. I wrote one of the winning essays about the importance of our new library. And, lest you think there as favoritism because Momma was the new volunteer librarian, the essays were submitted anonymously and judged by the PTA officers. I still have the prize – a hard cover copy of the Indian Ocean Adventure by Arthur C. Clarke.

There are those antagonists who claim libraries are no longer needed because everyone can simply buy their books through Amazon. While admittedly a quick source for just about everything from hoses to vitamins, book buying necessitates sufficient discretionary, disposable income. And, even for those of means, there is the practicality of borrowing from the library in solidarity with the 3-Rs – reduce, recycle, reuse.

With nearly five decades of practical experience, I can attest not everything is available through Amazon.

There was the distance learner who was able to complete her PhD. in nursing while employed in a small-town health clinic because expensive medical resources from the University of Minnesota were delivered to her local library though interlibrary loan. Interlibrary loan services that are at risk because the current administration has deemed federally supported intergovernmental library cooperation unnecessary.

The little ones whose caregivers brought them to the library for pre-school storytimes full of stories and pictures, rhymes and alliterations, enhancing early brain development through language.

The students who avoided the dreaded summer slump in reading scores because summer library programs energized curious young minds with books and reading, as well as thematic games and crafts.

The people who filed unemployment claims or submitted job applications at the library’s public access computers because their home situation did not afford internet connectivity, whether because of financial stress or the simple lack of bandwidth in the more rural parts of our state.

With the celebration of National Library Week drawing to a close, remember the times you have been drawn to the library and smile.

Spirituality · Writing

Balancing Dreams and Budget: Pausing our church building journey

annbh356Leave a comment
computer generated drawing of building with purple flowers in the foreground, dark roof and biege-brown walls
An exterior view from Locus Architecture following the schematic design phase of development.

I am a pen-and-paper note taker, a behavioral remnant leftover from long-ago college history courses. As we began discussing a new church home, it was natural that I would jot down ideas shared by congregants, whether during large group forums or even while enjoying a one-on-one coffee time conversation. Those notes evolved into an eight-page, single spaced, bulleted list. The ideas range from a visible entrance to natural light in the sanctuary; from an industrial kitchen to chairs with book racks for the hymnals; from energy efficient construction to a dedicated space for young adults. Some requests were overly broad – good acoustics. Others offered minute description – bench seating in the coat room for ease of putting on and taking off boots, with built in AC powered cubby holes to store and charge electric bike batteries during Sunday morning worship. Despite its length, the list contained very few contradictions. Even when there were preferences, for example, one-story versus two, Rev. Victoria Safford’s words captured the overarching sentiment which called for “a building that sits gently on the land.”

After seven years, through discernment, three congregational votes, a successful capital campaign, and reams of architectural renderings, we have a beautiful schematic design. Now we must pause.

There are a variety of factors conspiring against our project: current commercial interest rates are discouraging developers, and the design and location of our current building requires a unique buyer in a niche market. Add to this, the post Inauguration Day chaos and Presidential Executive Orders that, in the stroke of a pen, eliminated significant energy funding, as well as the threats of tariffs that will increase the costs of already expensive building supplies. A pause is prudent. My rational mind acknowledges that continuing to refine the architectural elements would be fiscally irresponsible, but my heart wants to buy a lottery ticket or host a bake sale or two or three. How to reconcile mind and heart?

With our most recent schematic design in hand, I decided to review the list and compare the dream with the elements on paper. In keeping with our vision statement for this land and the building: Do we have a design that will contribute to a compassionate and welcoming environment? How might this space contribute to our justice work? How inclusive have we been of the congregation’s creative suggestions?

Without the benefit of any scientific methodology, I rate our efforts: B+ to A-. The design incorporates many of congregants’ top priorities:

  • Large windows in the sanctuary with a panoramic southern view of the rustic landscape
  • A building footprint that can be expanded east and west to meet growth over the next 100 years
  • Easy workflow in a large kitchen.

Some highly desirable elements such as, the solar array or geothermal heating and cooling, are currently off the table due to cashflow. At best, we will build the needed infrastructure and add these highly-desired energy efficiencies in the future.

The questions that fill my mind these dark winter nights , as well as on snowy-bright days, are less about spreadsheets and the discrepancy between revenue and expenditure but focus on the nebulous side of the human psyche. How do we maintain the congregational momentum that got us to this point? How to convey that this project is like working on a post-graduate degree or taking the vacation of a lifetime, the dream will happen just not next year? How to gain financial support from everyone and spur our generous donors to give more? How to refine the design to realize cost savings without losing the heart and soul of the project?

While I do not wish sleepless nights upon any of my building team members or fellow congregants, we have a hard task ahead. Everyone’s thoughts and creativity will be needed and, maybe even, a lottery ticket.

Writing

Lost curb appeal

annbh3563 Comments
large tree trunk with orange dot in the foreground in front of a small white house with green grass
Lost elm tree – July 2013
three people in front of a small white house surveying a very large tree limb filling the yard
Effects of a wind storm – May 2024
large tree with orange dot and splintered wood pile in the foreground with a small white house and blue sky in the background
Storm cleanup – May 2024
two workers in orange jackets and hard hats surveying downed tree
Elm tree removal – November 2024
small white house with a dusting of snow on the front yard
Barren landscape – December 2024

For nearly a hundred years, two trees framed the curb side view of our house. A house that in 1927, early in the development of the second Kutzky addition, was moved from the corner of 5th Ave and 2nd St SW to its current location on First Street NW. The new boulevards in this early expansion of the city limits were planted with elm saplings.

By the time we bought the quirky house that has been our home for the past 40 years, the trees that survived the ravages of Dutch Elm Disease towered over the roof top. For years, we used them as directional markers, telling visitors “Fourth house on the right from Miracle Mile, with the two big trees.”

We lost the first half of our pair in July 2013 after the City Arborist determined a thinning canopy was problematic. We were sad to watch it go but also felt a twinge of homeowners’ relief. The previous summer, a thunderstorm felled a matching elm tree across the street with an earthshaking thud. The trunk, branches and a full crown of summer greenery had filled Leona’s driveway and front yard and blocked half of First Street. The systematic removal of the first of our boulevard duo ensured that this weakened giant would not come crashing through our roof.

At the time and using my naked eye and a fingertip, I counted 82 growth rings. Although this methodology may have been unscientific, a tree planted in 1931 did fit nicely into the neighborhood folklore.

With its removal, we noticed an immediate change in summer temperatures. The north-west rooms that had always had deep shade, beginning with spring buds through yellow leafed autumn brilliance, now bore the brunt of the afternoon summer sun. Proving that urban heat island effect is not a myth.

While the remaining tree continued to look healthy, even to the knowing eye of city forestry staff, we began to notice a significant reduction in elm tree seeds. Those flat, papery, almost translucent small disks with a tiny nutlet at the center. Cleanup up formerly required using snow shovels and our vegetable garden plots produced, what I am sure was a ga-zillion sprouts. Recently, tiny tree garden weeds rarely popped up and a quick swipe with the leaf blower over hard surfaces took care of the rest of the seeds.

A brisk May-day with freakish high winds, where velocity often exceeded 60-70mph brought down a limb, so large, it filled our next-door neighbor’s yard and half of the next yard. This mammoth splinter revealed a deteriorating center, and the tree received the dreaded orange dot making removal.

A two-season delay, May until nearly December, gave us one more summer of cooling shade. Now all is bare. The view from the front windows shows only snow-covered dormant grass. No squirrel antics on rough bark or roosting crows. Even the evening streetlight only offers nighttime brightness without the artful shadows from winter’s leafless limbs. The broad trunk with 95 growth rings has been ground to mulch; a lone patch of black dirt with scattered grass seed remains where the majestic ulmus americana once stood. We miss the tall stately life force that has been present for more than half of our lifetimes.

Writing

On the theme of repair and the care of my fragile psyche

annbh3561 Comment
white pottery covered cookie jar with colored decoration at top and bottom edge

My Dad could fix anything.  Or so I believed as a child as I saw the bits and pieces, he made whole.  In the fourth grade, I fell on the ice-skating rink at school and broke my blue glasses that were only three days new.  He closed the break near the hinge (a tricky spot), and I wore those glasses for the next two years.  Or, when he glued together the lid of the Red Wing Pottery Cookie jar, not once but twice.  Both times, years apart, I had dropped the lid while sneaking Pecan Crisp Christmas cookies.  Only the nearly squished frog that I rescued when crossing Vine Street was beyond his saving.  Somehow Momma convinced me, in my very distraught state, that the frog was not really appropriate for a “glue job.” We waited patiently for the small green creature in my hand to stop wiggling.  Then, with care, we dug a hole together for the frog’s safe resting place under the apple trees in the back yard near the black tire retaining wall.  

Unfortunately, the certainty that one’s parents control the whole of the world is an illusion left behind in childhood.  Through years of growth and decades of study, right directions and missteps, love found and health challenges, I realize there is very little within the realm of personal control.  We find reassurance but not control in the predictable (fall leaves cascading in riotous color, the coolness of November days at our 44° latitude, or bluejays frolicking in the neighbor’s crabapple trees.)  Even as I acknowledge those scenes are beyond my control, my brain drifts to November 5 and I slip towards dismay again, shocked by the name of another nominee; worrying about the safety of friends who choose to love differently or whose faces are not the color of mine. 

As a result of this month’s assignment for my writers’ group, even in the midst of these anxieties, I experienced a positive mental uptick.  Yesterday morning, while waiting in the Physical Therapists’ lobby, I realized that my malaise over the election has altered my behavior.  Suddenly, I have been “doom scrolling.”  Spending far too much time scanning social media for an uplifting image, an inspirational quote, or just watching random clips from previously viewed HEA movies. I mean – really – who needs to watch disjointed scenes from Pretty Woman?

Today, I am expanding my self-care regime hoping to repair my bruised psyche.  My plan already included drinking more water and limiting the time spent reading the news.  I will replace “doom scrolling” with reading poetry.  And, following the advice of poet Steve Garnaas-Holmes, I will “seek others who are tenderhearted” rather than cocooning. Today’s gathering of my writers’ group served as my beginning.

Photo credit: Red Wing Collectors (Please note: The cookie jar from my childhood is yellow, still in regular use and it will be filled with Pecan Crisps next month.)