July 2026

Each trip seems to take longer and longer to settle in all the way afterwards. I've been home now as long as I was gone on my Colorado trip and am still busy getting the things done that didn't get done while I was gone--thanks to broken promises from the man who stayed here to do them. 

Our agreement was that he'd have full use of the casita while I was gone in exchange for feeding my birds every day, watering and trimming plants, and hauling off all the dead brush he'd cut.  A week before I left I'd have recommended him to anyone. He's big, he's strong, he's capable of doing just about anything. But, well, he didn't hang the moon after all. 

According to the contents of my trash can which wasn't emptied for the entire 10 days I was gone, a lot of beer was consumed.  

My plan was to get the casita in shape for future at-home care should I need it.  In order to stay in my house long into the foreseeable future, I'd have a comfortable space to rent or swap to someone able to provide the kind of care I might need.

His promise was that when I got back I'd feel like one of those people on HGTV shows who comes home to a picture perfect house and yard and I'd say Oh!  My!  Gosh! over and over like they do on TV.

The 30 or 40 daily birds had not been fed and had looked for other places to eat. The brush was stacked in two piles exactly as I'd left them.  

It's awful to be disappointed in someone, especially when the work agreement has meshed with what felt like a friendship.  Bonnie and Will continue to urge me to stop being friends with everyone who comes to work--but it's kind of not my nature to separate the two.  

Anyway, I'm home now and catching up with friends on the phone and gearing up for a 101st birthday trip to Georgia in late summer.  This weekend my goal is to get back to some book-making and go shopping for a mobility scooter for scooting upon as Luci walks.  

HOME AGAIN!

 I just returned from one of the most relaxing and enjoyable vacations ever!

Durango, Colorado is the Happy Place of the Pritchetts, and now I get a big chunk of their Why.

Elena's rodeo, the Durango Hot Springs, nearby Mencas, downtown shopping, visiting Summit Church, meeting their friends, driving around looking for houses for sale, taking the dogs to Molas Lake and having dinner in Silverton, celebrating Will's Father's Day, and watching the wheels in Elena's mind turning until she finally decided that she's up for a move--it was a perfect week!

Molas Lake--between Durango and Silverton--is a place we've loved since Will was five years old and Day, twelve.  Will and Bonnie and the kids have fallen in love with it, too--there's something magical about it for us all.  They go there about twice a year--skiing in winter, fishing and hiking and horseback riding in the summer.  

Now, all they have to do is sell a house--and I'm hoping that won't take long. 

Not that I want them to move--it's going to be a big stretch for me--but more than anything I want them to be as happy year round as they are in Colorado!

So stay tuned.....

From Durango,Colorado

 I've been too busy playing the last few days to find time to write!  I drove first to Lubbock to spend a night with Nathan in his first house of his own!  He bought it with the idea of renting out rooms to students as roommates, then to future students!  He and his girlfriend, Chloe, and I had a nice visit touring the campus (by car), eating out, and their catching me up on where they are now--at 18 and 19!

Now I'm here in a beautiful house in Durango with Elena, Bonnie and Will--living the life!  Elena boards Yancey at a nearby barn--and she did an amazing ride in the barrel race event at the Durango Rodeo Tuesday night.  I absolutely loved sitting in the stands and experiencing a Colorado version of rodeo.  The people here are so friendly that two families of their friends came to watch Elena ride, too!

Yesterday we drove to Mancos (about half an hour's drive from here) where peace just falls down on you from all directions!  We had a leisurely lunch in an ancient building that has been all manner of businesses over the last century and is now a uniquely adorable bakery and restaurant.  We walked around an art gallery shop on Main Street and then drove through the area where Bonnie has "found her people" through women's retreats and now a yoga teacher training program of six weekends.  

Last night we enjoyed three hours at the Durango Hot Springs--along with some of their new friends, a family who moved here from San Antonio and opened a bicycle shop in downtown Durango.

I love the downtown area of Durango--and we're going to mosey around there today!

Then tomorrow we're going to Molas Lake and Silverton where we met Steve and Linda Kot and their children almost 40 years ago.  

Somehow I still don't know how to get pictures to post, but for now, just wanted to say a few words about this spot of earth Will and Bonnie call Paradise and none of us is ready to leave!  

Reading Alice and Jerry

       Some of us grew up on Alice and Jerry (I did); others on Dick and Jane. 

       The book I chose as a starter for my altered book is Day In And Day Out, featuring Mother, Father, Alice, Jerry.and a little dog named Jim.

        What a trip reading these stories!  I'm remembering, as one of the A-Team readers, feeling so excited to recognize letters that made words, and words that made stories. I also recall the B-Team readers who struggled painfully to decipher words. 

        I remember "going to the city" trips--on a train!  We didn't have trains or cities in my world. 

        I took it for granted that all our characters were white, living in nuclear families, people like me. What a shock it would have been in 1956 to see a child of color, or a "broken" family.  

        Reading this now with very old eyes, I'm wondering how these simple narratives shaped us, what we wanted, and what we should act like as girls. See for yourself: 

      Just then the man saw a box.  

He looked in the box.

      "Oh, Alice!" he said.

"Come here!  Come here!"

      Alice looked in the box, too.

      "A red coat!" she said.

"Here is my red coat."

        Then Alice laughed and laughed. 

In another of these chapter, Alice expresses a wish to go shopping in the city:

      Alice did not look happy.

      "I want to go," she said.

"I like to go to the city.

      "What!  What!" said Father.

"Is this Alice?

I like Alice.

But you do not look like Alice.

Alice is pretty.

You do not look pretty." 

Alice wants practical things, like a red coat.  At the toy store, Jerry wants it all: 

      "Oh, Father," said Jerry.

"I want the ball.

I want the boat.

I want the train." 

 I was walking around Goodwill on Friday looking for old books while Luci was at the groomer's.  I wanted to try a project in which you take the book block out of its cover and turn it into a traveler's journal .

I ran into a woman I've talked to several times in the past--,mostly at neighborhood garage sales.  An attractive older woman, she lives alone, makes and sells art cards.  Her beautiful colorful wardrobe--now I know--is made of creative  spins on thrifted clothes, scarves and jewelry.  

We talked in the book department, again in linens. She gave no indication ofever having  met me, but she was very friendly and chatty.  She told me about her business, what stores stock her cards, and that her mama always told her that taking a walk was a surefire way to ward off the blues.  

When her mother needed a pick-me-up, she walked through upscale clothing stores.  While she "couldn't afford a thing," she loved looking at beautiful clothes and jewelry.  The fashionable daughter, now almost 85, does the thrift store version of her mother's exercise routine.

In a less busy life, she'd probably be someone I'd choose to be friends with.  But I barely have time to see the friends I already have. 

She asked me where I live, and I told her. "We're practically neighbors!" she said.

Yes, I said, we should visit sometime.  The words were already out of my mouth, but I wanted to take them back.  It was my version of adults in my children ending store conversations with "Come see us sometime!" Not an outright invitation, but a vague hint of extending the conversation into the future. 

Her words, while unexpected,  were more honest.  "No, I'm a recluse," she said.  She said it in a way that was in line with her friendliness, not at all a rebuff. 

I loved her quick honesty! I'm going to take that page from her and use it in the future!

Sometimes one conversation in Goodwill is all you really need.  

Suddenly, I seem to have acquired some very young friends.

Madison, next door, is a high school student at Alamo Heights.  

Ava, Orlando's "girlfriend," is a curly-haired six-year-old. 

Kingsley lives behind me--and her parents brought her over on Sunday so that her dad could help Orlando move a heavy table. 

Another friend has a college-graduate daughter who wants to learn book-making.

Madison knocked on my front door yesterday with a jar of confetti cake.  They rent the dilapidated house next door. I have never seen her when she's not smiling. 

Kingsley is precocious and personable.  When she saw my house, she said, "Can I say something?....I have always loved small houses better than big houses."  She told me she and her mother are big readers, and I mentioned that I make blank books.  "Will you teach me?" she asked. 

Ava's favorite thing to do is paint and color.  I shared some markers and colored pencils with her and showed her some books I'd made.  "I will show you how to make an easy book next time you come," I told her--imagining starting with a folded book with no stitching for a six year old. 

She proudly carried her bag of "treasures" to Orlando's truck.  They were on their way to go swimming at her grandmother's pool.  Then she ran back and hugged me and gave me a present she found in his truck--a hot can of Dr. Pepper!

Orlando (aka Sasquash) and I are doing an art project together.  Mostly he's doing it.  I'm having a wonderful time!  I've always wanted a partner in making things happen, and he's all in, contributing and executing excellent ideas to do some improvements in the casita and yard. 

I'm in my happy place at the moment! 

 Making this little book has taken me on such a trip this morning!

I'm reading a 1995 book that is much loved and underlined--one of the few books I still have from the late 90s.  Feels Like Home is a compendium of quotations about the meaning of houses borrowed from literature, some of which I had in my original (unpublished) Women and Houses. I didn't just read this book, I conversed with it like a good friend. 

The introduction by Allan Gurganus is brilliant.  A writer from the South, he talks and observes and speaks to me like a real Southerner. So often The South is appropriated by writers from other regions, and I can spot the wrong notes right away.  Gurganus is a masterful storyteller.  He sets the stage for all the quotations and photographs in this beautiful book.  

While my book was specifically intended to answer the question, Why do houses matter so much to women? this book hints at answers by men and women who write about house and home, hospitality and homesickness, windows walls and doors, porches and possessions. 

My copy of the book is ravaged by marginalia and underlining and squiggles, but I found a new copy at Thrift Books and ordered it for $10 last night so I could have a pristine copy to share. 

"A man is not whole and complete unless he owns a house and the ground it stands on," wrote Walt Whitman.

Joyce Carol Oates wrote: "In human relations love at first sight is usually a mistake. In house buying, it is usually the only reliable guide."

David Owen, in The Walls Around Us, wrote, "To tinker with a house is to commune with the people who have lived in it before and to leave messages for those who will live in it later." 

Emily Dickenson wrote in a letter, "They say that home is where the heart is,: I think it is where the house is, and the adjacent buildings." 

I still remember reading Witold Rybcznski's book by Molas Lake in Colorado: The Most Beautiful House in the World.  I loved that he shows up in this book, too.  He writes about every feature of the house and what it means to its dwellers.

"[The front door] is the place for many everyday ceremonies of arrival and departure, for familial hugs and for furtive adolescent goodnight kisses.  It is the memory of these that give front doors personality--that is why we adorn them with Christmas wreaths and Thanksgiving corn."

There's also good old Anonymous. 

The beauty of the 

house is order,

The blessing of the house

is contentment,

The glory of the house is

hospitality.

--Anonymous. 

Writing and reading about houses did lead me to my own answer to the question, "Why do houses matter so much to women?"  As Scarlet sort of said, I'll talk about that tomorrow.....

Women and Houses

When the 1960s turned into the 1970s, Mark and I lived in a quaint little stone cottage on Beckman Hill.  We rented that house for 11 years from our old German landlord, Mr. Beckman. 

For $125 a month, we had the entire 65 acres and we could survey miles of Texas Hill Country from "the point" behind our house. Both of our children were born during those years, Day in 1971, Will in 1978.  In the Bicentennial year, 1976, I grieved a miscarriage. 

To everyone's amusement, our German Shepherd Tony climbed a big tree with a crooked trunk.  He caught frisbees there and sat patiently beside Day's stroller when Mark and I rode our motorcycles in the open field we made into a motorcycle track.  Our friends (Joy and Frank and others from the SAC art department) drove up our long bumpy driveway to visit us there, to have a picnic with the babies beside the track.  Frank and a few others brought their bikes.

One day Carlene bought me a pot plant for the living room.  I'd never imagined having a plant hanging in the window, but it sparked something in me.  This was my home, and I could put things I loved in it.

Will was a baby when Mr. Beckman decided to sell the entire 65 acres.  If we'd had $100K, we might have bought it--but that might as well have been millions! So we bought seven acres from him, a couple of miles down Scenic Loop and built a house there--a story for another day.

I yearned for a house of our own, a house I could decorate, paint, and move things around in.  I wanted a house that would be a canvas I could make my own.  For reasons I'll go into later, it turned out that this was never going to happen. 

And so, I began reading about the relationship between women and houses.  I remember sitting on a blanket on the ground with books spread all around me one fall afternoon, copying lines and paragraphs that discussed the meaning of houses to women.  From there, I wrote a book of my own, Women and Houses.  

The book of the month in the Handmade Book Club was a book shaped like a house. I made mine this week--but I still can't get this site to post photos.  

But what to do with those pages?

Turns out I decided to resurrect my book.  Now that I'm copying my own past writing, as well as quotations I'd collected, it feels like coming full circle.  It's transporting me back to all my past houses while I'm seeing my past questions in a new light, literally.  I'm sitting beside windows looking out into a yard of lush native plants and hummingbirds and doves and cardinals.  All flat surfaces are covered with papers, some I've saved (for some reason) for decades.  I'm at home here--more so than I've ever been anywhere.

I find myself in this chapter of my life looking back on all the previous chapters, all the houses that even now I could walk through in the dark and tell you exactly how many steps there are in every staircase. Each one is its own treasure trove of stories and memories and the friends and family who visited there.  

What I long yearned for I now have in spades, including a big sense of being At Home.

 Is it everything I hoped it would be, having a house of my own?

Oh yes, it's all that and more! 

My only sad spot is that my daddy (who along with my mama bought this house for me when it was still charmingly shabby) didn't live long enough to see what it's become and to have his favorite banana pudding at this table, looking out into this yard full of flowers and birds.  By some standards, it's just an ordinary little house. I wouldn't trade it for a mansion. 

Marcus

As of today, my two oldest grandsons, are both over the dividing line between kid and adult.  Today is Marcus' 21st birthday!  (Jackson will be 25 in October) 

He just sent me a fantastic picture of himself that captures the man he is: sun-tanned and cheerful, fit and glowing--but Google is not letting me post it.  Some glitch!

His parents are in Copenhagen for a week and when they return, Marcus is scheduled for a tonsillectomy.  His girlfriend Lucia is home for a month in Spain.  So I'm guessing he and his brother will be going out for dinner tonight, Marcus having his first legal drink!

As a little boy, he was shy. He proclaimed that he would never move away from his mama, that he'd always live at home.  He was a Mama's Boy for sure.

One day I looked down at a three-year-old Marcus as we were packing the car to go somewhere.  "Here, Marcus, can you hold these keys for me for a minute?" I asked.

His face registered a mix of delight and pride, honored to be tasked with such an important job.  He timidly took the keys and held them carefully, then said, "Yenna, I've never holded keys before!" 

He played the trumpet for a while, played lacrosse, adored all sports, had an incredible memory for athletes, coaches, plays, wins and losses.  When he went to college, he reinvented himself: he knocked on doors and got whatever he asked for, mostly jobs relating to sports and sportscasting and writing.  He made so many friends and created the life he wanted. 

He interviewed a star basketball player for his podcast, a girl from Spain, an art major.  

When Day heard the interview, she said, "Marcus, I think she likes you.  I mean likes you!" 

"Like she's into me?.....Nahhh" he said.

But his Mama was right.  I don't know what transpired, but pretty soon pictures started showing up of Marcus and Lucia.

One night the two of them were having a meal with Jackson and Deanna and the whole table was filled with his friends.  Jackson (reportedly) asked Marcus: "Did you ever think this would be your life, all these friends, a cool girlfriend and all?"

Marcus said, "Yeah, for sure.  I always knew this would  be my life!"

Here's to Marcus and 21 candles!  Here's to knowing what you want and going for it.  Here's to creating the life you want!

Cultivating the Joy of Aging

Charlotte texted me this poem by Jayne Gumbel, and I wanted to share it with all my aging friends and family:

Cultivating the Joy of Aging

Some mornings now

I wake before the world

and sit quietly with my coffee

like an old woman

who has finally stopped arguing with the wind.

The body speaks differently these days.

Knees remembering storms.

Hands carrying the ache

of everyone they have tried to love.

Still!

Wendy, the willow waving no matter the weather!

The birds call my name from the trees -

as though nothing precious has been lost.

This delights me!

I was taught to fear becoming older.

As though aging were a narrowing.

As though beauty belonged only

to smooth skin and unbroken things.

But the heart!

the heart becomes enormous

through weather.

I have cried enough now

to recognize sorrow

in the eyes of strangers.

I have lost enough

to stop wasting time

pretending permanence.

And joy? true joy!

No longer arrives like fireworks.

It comes quietly now.

In painting, in poetry.

In a friend who still reaches for my hand.

In the courage to rest.

In forgiving the life I did not live.

In belonging to the earth

instead of trying to rise above it.

Aging is not a punishment.

It is an initiation.

A slow loosening

from performance, certainty, and speed.

A returning.

Not to youth -

but to something kinder.

Sometimes I think

the soul grows older on purpose

so we will finally learn

how to love everyone.

Even ourselves.

Especially ourselves.

And when my time comes

to leave this shimmering world,

I do not want to say

I stayed young.

I want to say:

I stayed astonished.