Category: Writing

grief, poetry, Uncategorized, Writing

All Is Not Lost

The Writing Life of Kimberly Nash

All is Not Lost

What is grief but another form of love?

Without pain, is life truly well lived?

These are the questions I ask myself, crying Why deep in the night.

Well lived means well-loved, means well-worn, and sometimes worn out. Read between the lines of worry and sadness.  It’s ok to be tired sometimes. Rest is respite, not weakness.

What is it that keeps us going, to love again and again, in so many ways? The longer one loves, the deeper the grief of love lost. We are so good at it now, we even have anticipatory grief. The great and wise “They” tells me.  Who knew?

I do know this:  Once loved, we will never be truly lost. You will live in my heart, memory and soul, and  I in yours. We are memories, we are words on a page, to be read and reread, and even when I am lost and grieved, our stories will live on to be told and retold, from the tender lips of our children’s children.

Childhood, kindness, nostalgia, Summer, Writing

Kindness Remembered

The Writing Life of Kimberly Nash

 A Warm summer rain taps gently on the roof of the open back porch overlooking the back acres of our farm. It is early morning, a sacred time of day. A recent dry spell has left the grasses dressed in variegated shades of brown-yellow-green, and the rain is appreciated. From the porch, one can see the bluebird house where Mama and Papa Bluebird recently welcomed a set of twins to the world. When I peeked into the nest, and saw them, their scrawny naked necks were so vulnerable it made my heart ache. A flurry of activity ensues as the parents labor to feed their young. The bird chorus is in full concert. Someone gave the Robin a solo, his throaty trill is leaping with joy up and down the scale. A grade school memory emerges from a day when Sister Zoe coaxed Mark Mogenson, a tall, redheaded, shy boy to sing a verse. We had all been singing, in our varying childlike semi dulcet tones when she hushed us. “Mark, you have a LOVELY voice. Please repeat that verse for us.” Like today’s Robin, I watched as Mark transformed in that moment. He puffed up his chest, cheeks as plump and rosy as a cherub, and sang for us. Despite children’s well-earned reputation for cruelty to each other, not one snicker passed between us all, not even from Tommy Trevor, the resident freckle-faced scourge of the nuns who taught us. For a brief minute, we were all rapt, caught up in a veil of sweet kindness. Sister Zoe had that kind of magic where a person uses their power for true goodness. I learned through a class web site a few years back, Mark had passed away at a young age. If he were sitting here today, marveling at the Robin song with me, I wonder, if I asked him, if he would have remembered that day. I hope he took it with him on his short journey through this life, and I hope it was a good memory for him. With all of the abject sorrow being inflicted on our tortured world at this very moment, the only solace I know of lies in Nature and her beloved animal creatures. It is only in these moments, when I gratefully breathe in the perfume unique to a summer morning rain, that my overworked brain calms, and fragments of gentler times emerge, and I remember that sometimes, the best we can do is to be more generous with simple and small kindnesses. And, to be worthy of receiving them from the Sister Zoe’s of this world.

Uncategorized, Weight loss, Writing

Book Review of More Than by Diane Barnes

The Writing Life of Kimberly Nash
More Than

More Than by Diane Barnes

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I was a kid I couldn’t get enough of reading. I’d hold a book under my desk in school, out of view of the ever vigilant nuns, and read it, take a flashlight under the covers when I was supposed to be sleeping. A good book would get into my head, make me think, daydream, wonder about it during my non reading hours. Then, I grew up and reading became more of a luxury, something I did on vacation, or something to help me fall asleep. It took a backseat to my busy life. But every once in a while, I find a book that really grabs me, and this is one of those books.
I loved it! This book made me stay up past my bedtime and read on my lunch hour. The main character, Peggy, is so relatable. She is SO real, and so human. I laughed, I cried and I truly felt for her as she came to terms with grief and loss, and that turning point that so many women have experienced, when our children leave the nest and we suddenly are left to focus on ourselves for maybe the first time in years, and we don’t always like what we see in the mirror, or in our hearts. Diane Barnes writes about real life, and doesn’t turn away from or sugar coat the hard parts about the struggle with middle age and weight issues. Every character rang true. I highly recommend! I hope there’s more in the future about our friend Peggy, and/or her friends!



View all my reviews

Childhood, Fall, Summer, Writing

Reluctant Harvest

The Writing Life of Kimberly Nash

Under the threat of a hard frost, Farmer Jonny and I spent the last of today’s daylight after our day jobs bringing in what remained of our harvest. All of the remaining peppers – green, red and hots… jalapeño, habanero, cayenne, green and red bell. Thirty butternut squashes, my rosemary and some lavender. Several cantaloupes. They are oh so sweet this year! The old ears of corn we have left on the stalk to the coyotes… yes, coyotes love old, gone-by corn! Every year we learn something new from Mother Earth. She is a firm teacher, sometimes hard, but, eventually, forgiving.

It was a difficult work week for both of us, and I wasn’t feeling much like gardening in the waning pale sunlight, with a fall wind that smelled like the breath of winter buffeting our summer-spoiled bodies. In fact, I felt petulant as a child being ordered to do a chore by a strict parent. Only I was the parent. As the memes say, adulting is hard. But, as my beloved farmer and I trundled the squashes in a giant basket between us, up the hill and onto the back porch, the wind became exhilarating, the last of the workday’s ills fell away, and our true selves, partners, gardeners, lovers of this little slice of heaven on earth emerged, and together, we beat the killing frost before it could lay its skeleton hand on the fruits of our labor.

Fall, poetry, Summer, Uncategorized, Writing

Fallen Apples

The Writing Life of Kimberly Nash

Trees sigh and shed tears of yellow leaves onto the breeze. 

Sad, for the passing of summer.

The leaves having soaked the lemony summer sunshine up

Into their veins, yet in vain

For the sun is not eternal, and none of us are immune from dying. 

Except, perhaps, the thousands year old boulder excavated a hundred years ago, where I sit, holding an apple up to my nose, eyes closed. (You can’t really smell an apple unless your eyes are closed) Cinnamon, clove, citrus and the earthy scent of raw honey. 

Red jewels with shiny skins the apples lie in the golden and green grass like treasures. Prepared for sweetness, I bite the smooth hard skin and it bursts beneath my teeth with a snap and a flood of tartness breaks the spell the scents have put me under. 

Autumn has crept up as usual, to spring in front of us and wave her red-gold-orange-flag to dazzle by day and enchant by night with a crisp diamond studded sky, as if winter is not far behind. 

I can’t stop the seasons.

But I can still take the broken apple to the barn and share it with my friends, the horse, and the donkey, and we can still bathe in the warm honey sunshine. 

See the dust rise up from the hay bales and dance in that last fools gold light of summer.