Category: life
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Seaside Proverbs
Just a few months ago, I was walking barefoot along the beach. Salty mists buffeted my face. Cold waves stung my toes. I had arrived here for Dollbaby Week, a gathering of women writers and friends. Once a year, the Dollbabies come together at Virginia Beach. We share stories, laughter, love, and tears. We celebrate…
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Age of Omicron
This month, we began our fifth (!) semester under the Covid pandemic. I still remember when, two years ago, the news of Covid19 broke in China during January of 2020. Inside a couple weeks, cases hit 80,000 – a number that seemed phenomenal at the time. I remember thinking, “This could be it. This could…
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Fall Semester Prep
I’ve faced some challenges these past couple weeks that have made it difficult to keep up with online activity. I have a wrist injury that has forced me, temporarily, to work with one hand. This makes certain tasks like typing much more difficult. I’m trying to view this as a character-building experience. Certainly, it’s given…
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It’s Okay to Pull Back (Or, Confessions of a Would-Be Entomologist)
Friday, I met my student, Gabrielle, on a frosty spring morning to set up traps for her capstone project. Gabrielle is following up on work begun last year assessing the impact of stem nester refugia on native bee communities in prairie remnants at Jerry Smith Park. Sampling in 2020 hit some roadblocks due to the…
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Farewell, 2020
As this extraordinary year winds down, I find myself reflecting not so much on what 2020 took away, but on the surprise gifts this year left on my doorstep even as it demanded a transformative, dramatic shifts in pretty much everything that I do. Nothing will recover the 340,000+ American lives lost this year due…
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(Re)Connecting Wild
I promised I’d share some inspiring stories from NACCB2020, so this week I’m embedding the short film (Re)Connecting Wild from NineCaribou Productions. (Re)Connecting Wild documents the efforts of the Nevada Department of Transportation and partners to re-connect an historic mule deer migration route. Projects like these protect wildlife as well as human life and property,…
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Words of Courage, Comfort, and Contemplation
There are small things I can point to as bright spots inside the pandemic. Among these, I’ve discovered the pleasure of podcasts. I know: I’m years behind on this one. I’d never listened to podcasts before March 2020, but being away from the office – and people in general – nudged me into finding new…
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When History Repeats
A year and a half ago, when travel was still a thing, I had the opportunity to visit the great city of Berlin. While there, I spent an afternoon at the Topography of Terrors Museum. Built on the rubble of the former headquarters of the Secret State Police, the Museum commemorates the horrors perpetrated by…
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Black Lives Matter
I’ve been contemplating what to say here about the national and global outrage expressed in response to police violence against people of color. This is not a new problem for our nation; though like many others, I hope we are at last reaching a new horizon. Rather than indulge in my own take, I prefer…
K. R. Gastreich, Author 