Today I’ll take a break from riding and visit my friend Stacy at her lake house. I’m going to try to get up on water skis. It’s been a long time. At least a decade.

I remember the first time I water skied. I was twelve years old. My stepmother Janie took me to a friend’s lake house. “Let’s get you up on skis,” she said.

I was not prepared. I had no inclination or desire to water ski. That was the kind of thing other people did. Also, I was deep in the throes of the trauma of my parents’ divorce. I was trying my hardest not to enjoy life.

Still, I went along with Janie and her water skiing plan. We went out into the lake on a boat and jumped in the water together. Janie gave me some pointers and swam back to the boat. I couldn’t believe she left me there, floundering in the water! I tried to keep my skis pointing upright with the rope between them while I waited for the boat to pull away. My stomach flip-flopped and my ears buzzed. I was scared.

The boat made a funny sound and began to creep forward. Slowly, slowly, the slack in the rope tightened. Were my skies straight? I was falling over, unable to keep my feet in the right position while holding onto the rope. “Ready?” someone called from the boat, then without waiting for my answer, the boat lurched ahead. I strained to hold onto the rope while the weight of my whole body held me back. The water around me surged like an angry ocean while my hind end dragged below.

“Stand up! Stand up!” Janie yelled from boat. I had purely forgotten that part.

I slowly straightened my knees, switching back and forth while my body wobbled from side to side. Eventually, I got both my knees straight enough to hold my whole body up, and lo and behold, I was skiing!

The water was no longer water; it was glass. I was flying, sailing, soaring across the sparkly, solid expanse! The physics were all wrong! I was on top of the water! Sprays of water shot out all around me in blasts of white foam. What a mircacle! What joy!

I will never forget that first feeling of sliding across the water, defying all laws of nature I’d ever known. I felt invincible. I’m not an adrenaline junkie, not then and not now. No, this was something else. This was magical.

When my body finally turned to a noodle, I collapsed, forgetting that all important rule to let go of the rope. For a second, I thought I would die, drown with the churning water, be dragged to the horrors below.

Then I dropped the rope. The swells of water around me immediately relaxed. I bobbed in the lake, jubilant and light-headed. The sun blinded me, turning the lake, now choppy with the return of the boat, into a field of golden glitter.

Cheering and laughter reached my water-logged ears. “Great job!” “You did it!” The boat circled around me, bringing the triangular handle of the ski rope within my reach. I grabbed hold, leaned back, pointed my skis to the sky, and gave the thumbs up. I was ready to take another turn.

It wasn’t just the skiing that transported me that day. You see, we weren’t a skiing kind of family. My father eschewed all kinds of frivolity, and my mother had a calm sense of fun. There were no motor boats, no lake houses growing up. We played on creekbanks all the day long, but we didn’t even have a canoe.

Enter my stepparents, and a whole new world opened up. My parents, perhaps exhausted by their divorce from each other, just hadn’t been that much fun in the past few years. But Janie and Steve? Between them they not only brought skiing, but horses, mountain vacations, dogs in the house, new aunts and uncles, adventurous hiking and swimming treks, fifty pound bags of popcorn, tickets to rock concerts, and so much love, love, love.

And now, I’m off to Lake Martin, where my friend Stacy will throw me a rope and invite me to revisit that little girl who, shattered by the loss of what she’d known as her family, gave the thumbs-up and got up on those skis.

Pictured below are my daddy and Janie, and Steve and my mama. As you can see, Janie and Steve brought much joy to my parents. Both my parents are dead now, as is my brother. My first family is now completely gone. I remain close to Janie and Steve.

A Random Horse Thought

When I take Jasper, or any horse, out, I think of it as a shared experience. If Jasper wants to stop and gaze at something, imagined or real, in the woods, I let him stop and gaze. If I want to stop and take a photograph of some strange new wildflower, he stops and waits for me. Sometimes I let him eat on the ride, sometimes he lets me eat too. Muscadines are almost ready. Blackberries are a trail favorite. I tried Mountain Mint the other day. It’s quite minty.

Sometimes I let him pick the trail, the activity. The other day we took over an hour to finish what is usually a thirty minute ride because Jasper wanted to stop and visit every single horse on the ranch. If a horse wasn’t at the fence, he beckoned them over and we waited. Jasper booped every nose, shared horse breath with every horse, and only elicited one dramatic squeal (from Sage, it’s always Sage).

The horse world is beleagured by opinions about how folks should ride. There are rules upon rules, contradictions upon contradictions. My rules are we stay safe and we have fun. That goes for both me and the horse.

It’s hotter than a hundred hells right now, and our rides are adapted by length or time of day to accomodate the dangerous conditions. We always end up drenched in water from the hose afterwards, both of us.

Until next time,

Live wild, love hard, stay safe and have fun,

Mary :)

marydansak.com

Please visit my website for information on purchasing my books, which are collections of columns I’ve written to share my awe of the natural world with curious, wonder-loving readers, perhaps like yourself. :)

Share

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

I once wore the same dress for 100 days to prove a few things to me. Here are three things I learned (isn’t three just the most magical number?):

1. No one is looking at me. Our intense self-scrutiny is a lot of hamster-wheel energy better spent doing something else like riding, writing, or reading. Our disproportionate worry over what others are thinking about us is called “The Spotlight Effect.”

2. Merino wool is as incredible as it is advertised. Doesn’t need washing much, wears well in this hot, humid Alabama summer, and feels soft and welcoming.

3. I LOVED not thinking about clothes. When I say I have anxiety about clothes, I’m not trying to be cute. Of my few anxities, clothes might be my number one. I don’t know why.

   

   

   

   

I bring this hundred-day-dress bit up because of the Spotlight Effect. Despite knowing the Spotlight Effect is real, I am telling you about a decision I’ve made, even though if I don’t tell you, you probably won’t notice.

I am pausing publishing my columns on Substack. It’s a matter of time/energy, and lack of response. For those who buy my books, you may enjoy reading them without ever having read them before!

If you would like to read my columns, please subscribe to The Auburn Villager, or wait for me to put them in books, which I will continue to do. I will leave a few archives in The Nature Crow section here.

I will continue sending out Ride Along newsletters. Jasper and Noel would be very disappointed if I stopped.

SPEAKING OF BOOKS

Folks (who? People who write things on the internet? Bots? I don’t know…) are calling this a post-literate society. Oh hell no. Here are three book recomendations in each of the three self-proclaimed titles I hold. These are not the necessarily the top three, the best three, the anythingest three, just three that I recommend. Likely, I will do this again.

WRITER

• Craft and Currrent, by Janisse Ray

• On Writing, by Stephen King

• The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron

EQUESTRIAN

• Journey to Softness: In Search of Feel and Connection with the Horse, by Mark Rashid

• Horse Brain, Human Brain, by Janet Jones

• The Ride of her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America, by Elizabeth Letts

NATURALIST

• Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv

• Southern Wonder: Alabama’s Surprising Biodiversity, by R. Scot Duncan

• Box Turtles, Hooligans, and Love, Sweet Love by Mary Dansak

REFLECTIONS FROM THE SADDLE

There’s a new guy at the ranch who just rides horses. He’ll remain nameless for now, knowing that all his peers will be jealous of his new job. Sometimes he rides up to seven horses in a day. Sometimes he’ll take two out, ponying one, switching horses half way.

Just like when you send your kids off to school and hope they behave, I held my breath and crossed my fingers as he got to know each one. Will he be okay with Tex, whose eyes always look like he’s scared no matter what? What about Buck? Will Buck behave? After his ordeal, he can’t really get a good buck on, but there was a day. And Sage? She was just coming along in her training, turning into a fine, fine horse. How will he like her? Will she toss her head like she did when we got her, or flex at the poll like a good girl?

“Do you have a favorite horse?” I asked him after his second week.

“These are all great horses!” he answered enthusiastically. And I beamed like a proud Barn Mimi.

In news, I had a great time at my online book celebration for Behold: Essays Into Wonder. Steve Harrison and Lorna Wood were the winners of the trivia contest. I hope you all bought my book to learn about hyenas. If you missed it, you can access the recording of it HERE if interested. It’s on Google Drive. I will write more about what I learned later. Thank you to those who joined us!

I’m gearing up for the Alabama Writer’s Cooperative 2026 Conference in Birmingham, Alabama, where I will attend as a writer and speak on a panel. Click HERE for information on the conference and the AWC Writing Contest, which is now open.

I know we are busy. I know back to school is a rush. I know somehow, with all these devices and geegaws meant to simplify our lives, they have become ever more frenetic. My hope for you, today, is that you find a minute to stop and watch an insect, study a fungus, read a poem, savor a strawberry, or melt into the coolness of a favorite couch.

Live wild, love hard, recharge.

:) Mary

marydansak.com

Welcome to this week’s newsletter, Ride Along, a section of my larger Substack publication, Look Homeward, Horse.

Today is August 1st. We awoke to a slow, soaking rain, which is exactly what I and this dry dirt needed. In between visits from out-of-town buddies, celebrations, book events, girls’ nights, and hanging out with our granddaughters, I’ve been trying to ride Jasper every day. I need this day to stay home, get stuff done, don’t go riding that horse again today!

I’ve been riding even though it’s bloody hot. We walk a lot, trot and lope only a little, and stay in the shade. The other day it was too hot for a saddle, and we went on the briefest of rides, just 40 minutes 56 seconds to be exact (I do love my tracking app, Equilab).

We rode on one of my favorite trails, one that Jasper and I used for his rehab rides when he was injured last year. That day, I made a decision. Instead of a cluck-to-trot cue, I gave him a kiss-to lope-cue.

For the briefest sliver of time, we loped, the first bareback lope for me in over forty years. I wanted to cry out in delight, to call back to my teenage self who used to gallop bareback in pastures every day. “Look at me!” I wanted to tell her.

There was an ad on television back when I was that teenager. “We’re the Pepsi people. Feeling free, feeling free!” it went. There was one pasture where I always let Spade, my horse, run his heart out. I called it the Pepsi Pasture. I’d let Spade go as fast as he wanted, which was sometimes a gallop, and I’d sing at the top of my lungs, “Feeling free, feeling free!” I didn’t have a saddle. I had a horse and a bridle and a bareback pad with no stirrups. I had four hundred acres at my disposal. I didn’t have a cell phone (the very idea would’ve been ridiculous) or helicopter parents. I was the freest free bird on this planet.

My world was in tatters. My parents’ divorce and subsequent remarriages had my emotions shredded. My brother was an absolute juvenile delinquent. My childhood dog and my first horse died within months of each other. But now I had Spade, and he carried me across that pasture of adolescence and into my young adult years, my personal Pegasus, feeling free, feeling free.

And now, I have Jasper. (Okay, he’s not mine but he’s MINE.) Now I have Jasper. I’ll never let him go as fast as he can while I’m on him bareback. But I can ride him any time I want to. I can play the guitar for him. I can sit and write an essay in the barn while he bonks me on the shoulder. I can lather his mane up with Not Your Mama’s Blonde Moment purple shampoo and marvel at its whiteness, then thread blue ribbons through it all I want. I can crawl up on his big old back with no bridle or saddle and do my NYT puzzles on my phone, send an email even, while he grazes.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE LATELY THAT MADE YOU FEEL THIS FREE?

Did you eat blueberries by the handful and let the juice run down your chin? Did you hide in the cool, air-conditioned corner of the library and read a book without telling anyone where you were? Did you you go outside in this crazy heat and sit under a sprinkler and eat banana popsicles? Watch movies on the couch with your dog while the sun shone in the sky? Sit on the couch, unapologetically, and read a whole book?

I want to know. And if you don’t have an answer, then do something now and tell me about it. I want to collect moments of freedom and celebrate them with you.

Bits and Bobs

I went to the most delightful book event recently, In Conversation With Annie B. Jones at Auburn Oil Company Booksellers, my favorite indie boookstore, in my hometown of Auburn, AL. I read Annie Jones’s debut book, Ordinary Time, the next day. I devoured it. She writes about the beauty and contradictions of living in a small town, of staying while others go off to big cities and fancy jobs. She writes about keeping in touch with your younger self, and finding awe and wonder in daily life. Hmmm. Sounds like someone I know well. If you need a reminder that all our lives are incredible, I strongly recommend Ordinary Time.

Also, I asked my library to order a book they did not have in stock (The Sting of the Wild by Justin O. Schmidt). Two days later, I get an email that it was ready for me. I love the library. I love, love, love the library. Thank you, Auburn Public Library.

Finally

I hope you will join me in an online book celebration of my book, Behold: Essays Into Wonder this coming Tuesday at 6:00 pm Central Time. I’ve done a lot of online teaching, but hosting a book celebration is new. I hope to see your friendly faces on my computer screen as we delve into wonder, nature, critters, humans, trivia, stories, and fun.

Click HERE, which will take you to Eventbrite where you can register. You will receive the link closer to the event. You can also join by going back to Eventbrite when it’s time.

• Online.

• Tuesday, August 4, 2026.

• Free.

Onward into August. I love the word August, by the way.

Live wild, love hard, be free!

Mary :)

marydansak.com

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Welcome to this week’s newsletter, Ride Along, a section of my larger Substack publication, Look Homeward, Horse.

I’ve never been much of an athlete, but I know what it feels like to hit your stride, to get into the flow state, to be in the zone. When I tell you that rollicking along on the back of a 1200 pound sentient animal with a mind and a will of its own, and feeling completely connected to it in body and mind, and then to make one microadjustment in your leg and feel the horse respond, is nothing short of euphoria, you can trust me.

Jasper and I had a ride like that today.

Not every ride is a ride like that, but there are more rides like that than not, now that we’ve been together for three years. And the amazing thing, the thing that I cannot fathom, the thing that brings me to tears of astonishment, is that we keep learning new things, together, this big palomino pal o’ mine and me.

After you ride the same horse for a while, your communication feels psychic. All you have to do is think it and the horse responds. But what is your body doing when you think of your next move? Are you sitting ever so slightly forward in anticipation of that lope? Shifting one millimeter to the left to open up room for his massive right shoulder? Breathing deeper in anticipation of slowing to a walk? I don’t think an equestrian could even list all the somatic cues we give a horse when we ride. And the more we ride, the more our horses read us, anticipate us, and respond.

It’s incredible enough that we crawl onto their backs at all. It’s a gobsmackingly beautiful gift that they respond to our smallest gestures.

I had a lovely ride today.

Not long ago, on a nauseatingly turbulant airplane ride, I watched a documentary called Aitamaako’tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun about a young Siksika woman named Logan Red Crow who competes in a male-dominated Indian Relay horse race. I recommend this movie if you can find it. It’s not available in the U.S., but shows up on several Canadian platforms. One thing among many that stood out to me was that before every ride, her father would talk to the horse, saying something like, “You keep me safe, I keep you safe.” I look forward to watching this movie again and focusing more on the bond the family has with their horses.

Every single ride I’ve had since watching that movie, I’ve chatted with whoever I’m riding about what’s coming, always ending with, “You keep me safe, I keep you safe.” Call me woo, but I wait, watch for a change in their eyes, a flick of the ear, a slight nudge from the nose, and always, always, I get a signal of agreement.

As a writer, an equestrian, and a naturalist, my method is to invite the mysteries into my life, and then to notice when they show up. They keep showing up. Day after day. Like today, on my ride with Jasper. It’s not that he followed the obvious cues to move his booty over at the gate (he was actually a little slow on that), but something much deeper, more elemental, that created a blanket of understanding between us.

“I love you so much,” I said to him when I was showering him off later, “and I don’t know why.” He looked at me with his huge brown eyes and flicked one ear my way. What does he know? What do I know?

How do you open yourself to the wonder, the mystery, the curiousity of the world? Whether it’s needlework or computer programming, when do you feel that flow? How do you communicate with the non-human world around you? Perhaps you will share your answers to these questions in the comments. Perhaps these questions are writing prompts. Perhaps they are for you to think about tonight when you fall asleep, and in the morning, marvel over the profundity, or ridiculousness, of the answers your psyche provided.

In hard, fast, concrete news, you are all invited to an online book celebration of my new book, Behold: Essays Into Wonder. This book is a collection of essays in which I dig down rabbit holes of wonder and beauty, hippopotamuses and drug kingpins, near murderous adventures on rivers, secrets of astonishing hyena anatomy, and so much more. We will enjoy tidbits and snippets of reading, and play a little trivia. This is a free event, and it will be recorded in case you miss it and want to watch it at your leisure. Details are below.

Click the photo above to be directed to a link where you can sign up and get your free ticket.

Have a glorious weekend,

Live wild, love hard, chase the wonder relentlessly,

Mary

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Welcome to this week’s newsletter, Ride Along, a section of my larger Substack publication, Look Homeward, Horse.

The last time I cried for two weeks, horses saved me. In fact, it was the uncontrolable crying that led me to shouting my pain to the universe, resulting in the incredible blessing of having horses back in my life.

Recently, I had a two week, five day crying spell, and once again, it was a horse who saved me.

This weepy time was brought on by the unexpected death of a friend, Mike. Mike and my brother Robert, who died of drowning in 1999, were close. Mike made an effort to step into a big brother role, the boldest of all the guys. He was flat-out not afraid of my grief.

I was stunned by his death, the result of a heart attack or stroke while driving home from a long overdue visit to the ranch where I work. He’d visited on the very day I was traveling home from a jubilant trip to New York City. I had missed his visit by a hair’s breadth and looked forward to the next one.

In between Mike’s death and his memorial service, another wave of grief struck. Chanoah, the horse trainer who I’ve been riding with for three years and who makes frequent apperances in my writing here, left G&L Farms. She herself was drowning in working full time at the ranch while maintaining her own place, Orr Farm Rescue and Sanctuary, with fifty odd animals at home and her husband recently disabled.

Not only is Chanoah hands down the best horseperson I know, generously teaching me while training the horses, we had a lot of fun on the trails. A kind of fun that children have, going on missions and having contests, our hearts playful and joyful and tuned out to the worries of the world. Chanoah has some hard times ahead with her place, but I didn’t cry about that. I cried for pure, selfish reasons. I’ll miss her.

Mike’s memorial service brought floods of tears. Seeing Mike and his late wife Anita in the faces of their three daughters. Mike’s mother, stoic and beautiful, his brother, his sister. The heat, the heaving sadness, the joy of reconnecting with old friends. It’s all so much, isn’t it?

And then, remarkably, life goes on. Sort of.

I couldn’t quit crying. Even the trees couldn’t comfort me. Plus, all around me, trees are being whacked to the ground to make way for more houses with hot, boring, non-sustaining lawns. One of my friends tried to talk to the person who was clearcutting the yard next to her, the new owner of the house. He will never live there of course, he’s just another flipper.

“It didn’t occur to me anyone would care about these trees,” he said.

Oh, the heavy grief of the tangible, the intangible, things that can be named, things that can’t be named. And what is crying, that it just won’t stop, when we grieve?

My friend Kris called. “Are you gonna tell me what’s going on?” she asked.

“I’m still struggling,” I said, and promised we’d talk about it later.

It’s too hot to ride much at the ranch, so Anna Marie, who is also a delightful riding and working partner, and I have been bathing horses. One day this week, we went to fetch Mo and Sage, two beautiful mares, to bring them to the big barn for their Summer Spa Day.

I led Mo over to the Gator and crawled up on it so. Something in me shifted. This felt a lot like childhood, scrambling up on a piece of farm machinary to get on a horse. I threw my leg over her back and slid my body onto hers, which, incidentally, is carrying a 106 day old foal fetus.

The instant my body and hers melded into the ever glorious wonder of human on horse, I felt it. It was like a spring snapped, a tiny seismic shift occured in me. I was back. Mo and I stepped out with just a lead rope, my body rocking with her hooffall, Anna Marie beside me on beautiful Sage.

The endorphins and oxytocin flooded my brain. Peace. I was at peace. Hallelujah!

The world will rock on without Robert and Mike living on this planet. Chanoah and I will ride together again at her place, once this dreadful heat breaks. I’m meeting up with Kris today to talk about life and grief and whatever else. I don’t know what to say about the trees.

Once again, as has happened so many times in my life, a horse saved me. I don’t know what it is about how my brain is structured that horses are so necessary, such salvation, I only know that it is so.

Which brings me to the most important thing I can say to you. Pay attention. Know what makes you happy. As hard as it can be when caught in a cycle of sadness, remember that thing. Claw your way to it. Crawl up on a heavy piece of machinary and climb on. We are ever so much better stewards and champions of the things that need protecting when we ourselves are whole.

If inclined, Orr Farm Rescue and Sanctuary could use all kinds of help. From financial donations to this Amazon wish list to volunteer labor for locals near Wavery, AL to grant-writing to exploring the website and sharing to prayers, intentions, no amount of energy is too small.

I’m leaving off all the other bits and bobs of news, books, writing, and details because this newsletter is long enough. Still, I’d love to know what you’re reading, what you’re writing, what your horses and other critters are up to, and how nature is speaking to you lately.

Love hard, live wild, be your glorious self always,

Mary

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Share

When we were little, my brother Robert and I behaved as if we owned this town. We rode our bikes through all the neighborhoods, behind the houses, in every parking lot, through downtown, and all over campus. Bowzer, our faithful black and tan hound, followed us, patiently waiting while we read the magazines in Toomer’s Corner Drugstore, played pool in the basement of the Auburn Christian Student Center, or loaded up on paper bags full of candy at Zippy Mart.

By far, our favorite hangout was Funchess Hall, located on the south end of the university, across the street from the Heart of Auburn Motel. It didn’t hurt that our dad, Dr. Bob Mounty, had an office there, and taught classes in the building now nicknamed “Fungus Hall” by those who don’t appreciate its funky aesthetic.

I loved it, the whole thing, from Charlotte, the friendly diamondback rattlesnake, to the stench of rotting sawdust and formaldehyde.

I loved hurling those huge glass doors open and running up the stairs. Halfway up the flight, a pair of mounted animals, a bear and a moose, hung from the wall. The moose was remarkably huge. My heart longed to see a real one, especially since my mama’s nickname for me was Moose. I’d stand there on the landing and relate to the giant herbivore before me, leaning precariously across a small railing to be nearer.

The bear, on the other hand, scared me silly. Mouth open, huge teeth exposed, his lethal bear claws reached out for me. I stared, awestruck, and to this day, I maintain a healthy fear of being mauled to death by a bear.

Safely past the bear, I’d run up to the second floor where my dad’s office was. Or was it on the third floor? Not only is my brain old and tired, Funchess Hall doesn’t follow the typical rules of physics.

Whatever floor it was, I knew when I’d arrived because there was a great glass display case of various stuffed mammals and reptiles to greet me. I could watch, in real time, their fur slowly disintegrate, and grainy sawdust leak out of their seams.

After a brief hello to my animal friends, I’d look for my dad. He had an uncanny ability to whistle out of both sides of his mouth. Following the tell-tale whistles, I’d find him walking the halls or leaning in a doorway of someone’s office, cigarette in hand. His blue eyes twinkled when he saw me, even when I caught him in the middle of teaching a class.

Then it was off to visit “the museum,” a mystical room of tanks, cages, and buckets full to the brim of live specimens. I remember fondly sirens, hellbenders, millions of feeder mice, a gila monster, snapping turtles, box turtles, and lots and lots of snakes, the queen of which was Charlotte, an impossibly enormous diamondback rattlesnake.

At least I think she was a diamondback rattlesnake. Childhood is an unreliable narrator.

Charlotte has her own stories, those that my dad’s graduate students, now grown men with gray hair, can tell. For me, she was just a big, beautiful rattlesnake. Charlotte was docile, having been in captivity for a long time. Robert and I could put our faces right up to her. Sometimes her body would be pressed against her glass home and we could examine the intricacy of her scales up close.

Despite her pit viper head, a shape that seems to draw fear in humans, we found her cute. She stared at us as we stared at her. Yes, we bonded with Charlotte. Every now and then she’d rattle, a noise now ingrained in my mind, one I’ve never once heard in the wild. How can she rattle so fast, I’d wonder, staring at the vibrating buttons on the end of her tail.

Although we had total freedom to explore Funchess Hall, and all the buildings on campus for that matter, there was an exception: we were not allowed to ride the Funchess freight elevator by ourselves.

“That thing’ll cut you in half,” I can still hear my dad warning us. Yet every now and then, he’d take us on a ride.

We’d step into its great steel maw and Daddy would reach up and down at the same time, pulling on two opposite canvas straps that closed the doors horizontally. Then he’d reach over and yank a metal gate that expanded across the gap. We were in it for real now. He’d push a few buttons and the elevator would come to life, creaking and groaning. Slowly, slowly, it would reach its destination. Daddy would reverse the process, and Robert and I would emerge on a new floor, wide-eyed in excitement, and beg to ride it again.

I haven’t been in Funchess Hall in many, many years. It’s time for me to pay a visit to the bear, the moose, and the ghost of Charlotte, who no doubt slithers the floors of Funchess Hall on quiet, dark nights.

Of note, I did take my granddaughters to Funchess Hall soon after writing this. We were amazed to find my dad’s name, and the names of his cronies, still on the directory, that felt thing with the white plastic push-in letters. And the ghost of Charlotte did indeed slither the floors of Funchess Hall.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

New York City shines like a beacon, glitters with lights on streets and in windows, and beams with the dreams of eight million souls on any given day. Recently, however, the city experienced an extra fresh and spangly sparkle. Not because the Knicks won the National Championship. Not because the violent crime rate is lower than it’s been in the past five years. Not because Lei won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant on the very day our daughter Anna started working there. No, the fresh little light that brightened the whole city was the presence of Ruby, our brilliant gem of a granddaughter, who visited New York with me to celebrate turning ten years old.

Spreading trails of cheer, Ruby scampered high on brick walls and low in subway tunnels. “Look, Mimi, this is such a cute dog!” she cried upon seeing the first twenty dogs on our visit. She stopped to pat each one.

“You can’t pat every dog in the city,” my daughter Anna and I said, so she turned her attention to the pigeons.

“Hello, buddy,” Ruby whispered, crouching to encourage each pigeon to come eat from her hand, never successful but ever determined. “That one is so cute!” she squealed, pointing to a brown pigeon, or a black pigeon, or a pigeon with a limp, or any old pigeon.

How she loved FAO Shwartz, where she left with a handful of Schleich horses and a precious stuffed animal, a pigeon of course. She named her pigeon Liberty and carried it everywhere, and the streets sparkled in her trail.

Oh, to be ten years old in New York City! To count the trees, the skyscrapers, and the ferry boats while skipping circles around your grandmother and aunt. To play on the public playground and discover that even though the children around you speak different languages, excellent playmates are excellent playmates, and communication springs from a whole lot more than words. To have an ice cream cone for dinner at Lady Moo Moo, where folks bring their dogs into the store with them to order. The dogs, having received word of Ruby from Georgia through the dog grapevine, tugged at their leashes for a gentle scratch on the head.

How the city thrummed as we made our way through Central Park, where hundreds of fans gathered for a public watch party for game four of the NBA playoffs. Thousands of pigeons cooed their hellos as we approached Lyric Theater on 43^rd Street, where a performance of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” awaited. Of all the 1,622 fans staring slack-jawed and wide-eyed at the magic on the stage, an extra circle of pixie dust enveloped orchestra seat 22, Row X, where Ruby sat, perched on her Wizard Cushion, leaning in to catch every word, every effect.

After the show, we met the luminous Emmet Smith, who acted in the starring role of Albus Potter, backstage. And oh, what magic lay behind the curtain! The actors! The dressing rooms! The ropes and ribbons and rotating stage! And then, Emmet pulled a prop from the very play, a letter, and signed it over to Ruby, thus sealing the wonder forever in ink.

We made our way home on the subway, still brightly lit in the City That Never Sleeps. Ruby rested her Harry Potter hatted head on my shoulder. The city and the thrill of the day whooshed by as we headed to Brooklyn and Anna’s home. But now the city was glum, and everyone stared at their cell phones, watching their beloved Knicks lose to the Spurs in a sound stomping at half time.

We left the subway and what was that? Was that a rowdy round of cheers we heard? And that? Another? Soon we turned onto Irving Street and walked right up on a sidewalk watch party where grown men jumped up and down in front of the projector which displayed a nail-biter of a basketball game. And the Knicks were ahead! Then the Spurs were ahead! Then the Knicks! Then the Spurs!

“Have some steak! Have some shrimp!” one of the men yelled over the ruckus to us.

“Today’s my birthday!” Ruby yelled back, and yes, it was true.

“Ruby’s birthday?!” the neighbors cried. “The Knicks have to win now!”

And they did. And the streets erupted. And the fireworks blazed in the sky. Ruby ran in circles with a young boy about her age, and everyone hugged and chanted, “Knicks in five! Knicks in five!”

In the morning, Ruby and I hailed an Uber and headed to the airport. All over the city, in Bushwick and on The Little Island and in Central Park and throughout Rockefeller Center, New York City’s angels waved young Ruby on her way. As for the extra sparkle that Ruby brought with her, it stayed with the city’s pigeons, whose iridescent feathers shimmer ever onward a little brighter than they did before Ruby came to the city.

Thank you for being here. I hope you enjoyed this week’s edition of The Nature Crow. If you are of an ilk that prefers holding a physical book in your hand to a screen, consider one of my two books of collected columns, both available on Amazon.

Have a great day!

Behold: Essays Into Wonder

Box Turtles, Hooligans, and Love, Sweet Love

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Trot Your Ponies* to the Left

There are now 0% of the residents of my home county, Lee County, Alabama, affected by the drought. It’s raining, slow and soaking, soddening the ground underfoot, steaming the streets, slackening the rain-laden leaves. I need these days to make me stay home, do my chores and tasks, catch up. Still, I sneak out to the barn.

Recenly, Chanoah and I were way out in woods, maybe a little lost even, were we even on the property any more? Just as we let the horses turn towards home, we heard the boom of thunder, felt the unmistakable turn in the temperature, wiggled under the prickles that mean the weather is changing and we are out in the middle of the woods, with trails to cover and pastures to cross before we reach shelter.

The wind picked up, the booms amplified, a dark, gray line appeared in the sky as if there were now two horizons. We scurried across that pasture, the last place we wanted to be in a thunderstorm. We made it to the gate when a gust of wind knocked a heavy oak branch off the tree beside us. CRASH! The horses shied, our heart rates raced, but we made it into a barn.

Everyone down here knows better than to ride when there are storms on horizon. Sometimes we think we can outrun them, but they’ll always catch up.

And then, just the other day, we groomed and saddled a couple of horses, ever watchful of our weather apps. “We have two hours before the rain,” we agreed. But when we opened the barn doors, we had no hours. It was pouring. We rushed to the covered arena.

“Trot your ponies to the left,” we laughed, calling our own horse show. Chanoah’s dog Daisy sprawled in the middle of the arena, our judge.

Today I give up. I’ll only plan to groom horses, which is a joke, because as soon as you turn out a groomed horse it will roll in the mud. But we do it anyway, because they like it, and we like it, and it’s good for their circulation, and they need to have the mud scraped off, and basking in the smell of a horse in a barn is a requirement for a well regulated nervous system.

I know how today will play out. As soon as I get my horse good and groomed and turned out, the sun will come out and tease us and say, “Don’t you want to come for a ride?”

And likely, we will. And then we’ll get rained on.

Writer Updates

I am writing my fingers to the bone. I reached out to the editor of The Auburn Villager recently proposing I write a column every other week rather than weekly. That will begin shortly.

And then, lo and behold, I was newly aflood with ideas and energy, and wrote two entire columns in addition to the one due, and wondered how the brain works. Isn’t it a marvel? Ease up a little, the brain fills the gap. Kind of like riding on a loose rein. Kind of like storms.

Speaking of, the topic of my column yesterday about coyotes and the way their population increases the more we hunt them, is fascinating. Neglecting my own fascination with my subjects was in the “cons” section of my notebook when assessing the pros and cons of reducing the frequency of writing my columns. I learn so much when I write.

To be a writer is to live in three dimensions at once. You experience your life. You experience it as a writer. You experience it as your reader. Everything is a story. My smallpox scar. Seafloor spreading. Miss Manners.

Equestrian Updates

Here is a moment I had with Laney this week. It brought me to tears. Bonus: grass-eating squeaks included, and the vision of Noel’s colors changing. The end is tremendous.

Spoiler, this was the first time I’ve been able to pet her like this since she was vaccinated in February. We had to tie her for that, and she isn’t soon forgetting.

A horse introduction: This is River with granddaughter Annabelle, who later rode him bareback with just a halter and lead rope. Greg bought River because he wanted to give him a good home after a long rodeo career. River gets light rides only. When I ride him, I ride bareback. He is an excellent grandchild-safe horse, responds well to all his cues, isn’t fussy or silly. We think he is 20 years old. Isn’t he splendid?

In my riding, I’m working on correcting a mistake. I was rolling my heel l when I should’ve been bumping. I’m fixing it easily once Chanoah pointed it out to me.

Naturalist Updates

As well as being a naturalist at heart, I am certified as an Alabama Master Naturalist. Part of our service is to volunteer. I’ll be volunteering at an “Explorers” day camp at Kreher Preserve and Nature Center for elementary school-aged children this coming week. I like children, and fully expect to end the week energized, and yes, exhausted.

A Little Something Something From the Saddle Bag

Paid subscribers, if you are interested in a complimentary copy of Little Devil in Me: Rambling Reflections of Husky Kirkwood, a small collection of “stories” transcribed word for word by me of my farmer friend Husky, let me know here.

This book is for folks who like words, linguistics, snippets from an old way of life, and are open to completely atypical structures.

Have a great weekend.

Live wild, love hard, stay out of the storms,

Mary

*For those unfamiliar, the term “ponies” is affectionately used to mean all horses, regardless of size.

NOTE: If you are new here, I work as a legacy writer on a horse and cattle ranch, G&L Farms, owned by Greg and his wife Lisa.

Share

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

“Have you seen the donkeys?” I asked the cows, as I always do, as if they will answer. This is how I talk to animals, assuming they understand every word I say and that if they do not respond it is by choice.

The cows, as usual, chose not to respond. We shrugged and rode along toward the last gate before crossing the road to go home.

Oh, but there they were, the donkeys, standing right beside that last gate, as if they’d spotted us and knew we’d end up there with treats in our saddlebags and fingers curled for optimal scratching.

I dismounted and handed Jasper’s reins to Anna Maria. It’d been a day or two since I’d spent a good minute with Laney and Noel.

Laney is still suspicious of her since we dewormed her back in February. Donkeys do not forget. I gently offered her a treat which she took, then stepped back. “It’s okay, Laney, you don’t have to come any closer,” I said, but I felt sad, remembering how she let me hug on her before the deworming.

A few days ago, Laney allowed Annabelle, my almost twelve-year-old granddaughter, to stroke her neck. The two of them stood away from us, behind a tree, a delicate pairing, while Noel nipped and pushed and bonked Ruby, my almost ten year old granddaughter, and me repeatedly, demanding more attention.

Not long ago, I posted a video of Laney and one-day-old Noel on our G&L Farms Facebook page and watched in amazement as our followers skyrocketed from 200 to 4,300.

What is it about these donkeys?

Because I am awash in the wonder of them, in the sheer amazement of their beauty and wisdom, it’s hard for me to step back and look at this mystical enchantement objectively.

Now I must confess here and now, I belong to some donkey appreciation groups on social media, and in the world of donkeys, Noel and Laney are not exceptional on the surface. There are heaps of gorgeous donkeys out there, and every baby donkey is tooth-grindingly cute.

And yet, there’s something about Laney and Noel. And you, dear reader, are part of this magic. No matter what I write about, it’s always these donkeys you love most. Can we decode the spell? Unlock the draw? Dissect the magnetic pull of these girls? Let’s try.

Is it the Resilience?

We have watched both Laney and Noel through many adventures, some of them dangerous, some of them confounding, all of them tugging at the heart. We have worried over them and rejoiced at their health and happiness. It turns out we love stories about surviving the slings and arrows of life including stallion donkeys, barbed wire fences, and freezing rain.

Even donkeys, stoic and resiliant animals, have challenges. We weather these storms with them.

The Bonkey, the Honky Cat, and the Scragamuffin

When Noel was a little one, there was nothing in this whole wide world cuter. But oh, when her first winter in the pasture dawned, she grew scruffy. Her downy fur turned wiry, and was always packed with mud. Still, we saw that baby in her face.

Oh my heavens, her first spring was ridiculous. I called her a Honky Cat, not knowing what a Honky Cat is, but finding myself singing, “Get back, Honky Cat, better get on back to the woods,” every time she came zooming out of the woods to say hello.

Two season later, now shedding off her Scragamuffin look, we’re seeing her as a real donkey for the first time. And yet, no matter what she looks like, she’s still Our First Noel. Sort of like our children. Exactly like our children.

Laney Madonna

Eyes always trained on Noel, always standing regally in the background if not closer, always watching our every move. There is so much out there to protect Noel from, the cows, the coyotes, the storms, the tractors, the humans, the unknown. Laney’s soul is charged with fierce, maternal love.

Behind that steely determination, she’s beautiful, with ethereal eyes framed in lush lashes, the points on her face exact and clean. Somehow there’s vulnerability all intertwined with strength, a real steel magnolia if I ever saw one.

Laney is my first beautiful donkey. I didn’t know donkeys could be serene, mystical, all-knowing. I thought they were just funny. Not Laney. She never makes silly faces. She’s wise. She’s on a different plane. Plane Laney. Laney Madonna.

Life is complicated and messy and sometimes scary. How unexpected it is to find comfort in a gentle donkey with kind eyes who might just kill you if you hurt her baby.

Is it the Ridiculousness?

Noel is ridiculous. I don’t know if she will ever achieve the grace and dignity of her mama. She’s not even close right now, but she’s just a toddler so there’s time.

Noel is pushy, so pushy that I can no longer squat down in front of her. When she comes in for a hug, she knocks me over. We are working on that. We are working on a lot of things. Not biting, not kicking, not pushing us around.

When our visiting time is up as determined by Noel, she runs to her mama, often kicking out at us as she leaves, and props her head up on Laney’s back. As they trot away, Noel keeps her head propped there in some kind of contorted pose. Ridiculous.

Sometimes we decide our visiting time is up, and Noel chases us. Sometimes she puts her head down and chases Daisy, her canine friend from childhood. Sometimes she chases the calves, looking for playmates. She loves to chase. Ridiculous.

Ridiculousness has its place. How delightful it is to see it on full display right where it belongs.

Is it the Mystery?

Noel is ours, a child of the universe, humans included. She loves having friends on Substack. Yes, I tell her about you all the time. She will forever and always be a people-donkey.

Laney is a donkey-donkey. Laney allows us a glimpse of her world, and she peeks into ours through a veiled suspicion. We are the lucky ones.

Whether its the blurred lines of our existence with dogs or the solid walls between us and wild animals, anytime we cross into the animals’ worlds we are better for it. Through pixals on computer screens that allow us to peek into Noel’s and Laney’s eyes, or the glorious good fortune some of us have to be with them in the real world, we recognize that our worlds are made better for them. For all animals. For the incredible good fortune that we share our planet with beings who don’t speak our language but still communicate through cosmic waves of interwoven respect.

The whole mystery of life wells up before us when faced with two little donkeys in Camp Hill, Alabama. What a wonder.

A Little Something Something from the Saddle Bag

And now, some fun news. I have been thinking about gifts to paid subscribers that hold NOTHING BACK from free subscribers. Behold, my first token of appreciation!

I have made some Noel and Laney stickers on Redbubble.

Paid subscribers, if you’d like a freebie, email me at TheNatureCrow@gmail.com with your name and mailing address. I’ll send them out next week when I’m home from a trip to NYC.

All other subscribers, you can order one HERE. I’m making scant little profit here, have it set to the minimum. This is not a capitalistic venture. Just sharing a little something something.

Finally, for those who like to be in conversation, what about you? Have you tried to delve into the mystery of a beloved animal? It’s difficult, isn’t it? What do you have to add to the allure of Laney, Noel, or any animal? Aren’t we blessed among beasts that they allow us to share our lives with them?

Live wild, love hard,

Mary

marydansak.com

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Dear Paid Subscribers,

First of all, THANK YOU for caring enough about my work to pay me. It still blows my mind that you exist.

And now, it was brought to my attention t…

Read more

I went to a large soiree this weekend, a low-country crawfish boil. There must’ve been 150 people milling around! A band juked along in the background, children ran amok, grownups ate crawdads and drank beer and laughed about the good ole days.

How strange, then, that even though this party was held at a place where I spent my formative years, a grounds with barns and an old house whose every inch my soul to my toes knows, acres and acres where I rode my childhood horse for days that stretched endlessly across time, that I only knew about four people there.

We used to call this place “Husky’s,” even though it had a name, Roamers’ Roost. “I’m at Husky’s,” “Let’s go to Husky’s,” “Meet me out at Husky’s.” These were sentences that rolled out of my mouth several times a week until the old man himself, Husky, died in 2019 at 95 years old.

He left the house and farm in shambles. The new owner, the heir, has cleaned and hauled and scrubbed and painted and refloored and bushhogged and torn down and rebuilt and spitshined that house and much of the premises, work that desperately needed doing. I congratulate him heartily. It glows.

But it doesn’t look like Husky’s anymore. The house is almost empty of all signs of him. Looking around at the hordes of folks surrounding us, my stepmother Janie, who started hanging out at Husky’s before I was on the scene, and I asked each other, “Did these folks even know Husky?”

It’s a new generation, and there’s another generation running around the farm climbing on tractors and eating crawdads and fishing in the pond.

This is how it should be. New folks come along, new traditions are established, like this 7th Annual Crawfish Boil. All is well, except . . .

What happens to all those stories we made out at Husky’s? And all his stories? I’ll tell you. They die. Stories die after two generations if you don’t write them down.

Luckily, I had the idea to record Husky talking and to transcribe his ramblings into a book which I put together for him for his 90th birthday. There are fourteen tales in there, painstakingly put together in almost coherent packages.

But oh, the stories that aren’t in there, his, his wife Alice’s, and the stories from my life out at Husky’s.

Although I get plenty of my stories written in my weekly columns, I’m feeling a sudden urgency to write my stories more. MORE MORE MORE!

What about you? Here’s a helpful hint. If you need a boost to start writing yours, consider taking Janisse Ray’s Memoir Writing Course this summer. I took it last year and it is rewarding and rich. You can find her on Subtack HERE.

If interested, you can order a copy of Little Devil In Me: Rambling Reflections of Husky Kirkwood HERE. The paperback is $5.00. I don’t make but a trifling profit on this, and offer this as a relic, a way of preserving a manner of speaking that you don’t hear much anymore, the old southern porch talk, directly transcribed.

The book launch for Behold: Essays Into Wonder was a smashing succees. We talked about the roundheadedness of bonkeys, grief, Voyagers I and II, the incredible strangeness of hyenas and the females’ hemipenises, and so much more. We concluded that it is a privelege, indeed a miracle, to be included in this living world.

I am considering recording a short, ten minute version for folks who couldn’t be there. Does this interest you?

In riding news, the horses neither know nor care that we’re still in a drought. The woods are free of hunters, the winter grass is still hanging on, the sun sticks around into the evening, and we’re riding and riding. Jasper has been so well behaved lately I hate to even mention it. He and I have reached that mystical synchronicity that happens when horse and a human spend a lot of time together.

Noel and Laney remain the best cow donkeys. Lately, Noel plays a game when we ride the horses up to her. She flirts, then she turns and runs away, stops and looks over her shoulder, and runs back. She so wants a playmate.

There is so much more to say about horses but this is long enough. I hope you have a wonderful week full of the things you love. I hope the frogs are singing outside your door, the lightning bugs are emerging near you, and you find a minute to pick up a pen and a notebook and write something down.

Live wild, love hard, be you,

Mary

PS: If you are interested in reading my weekly columns, they live at Look Homeward, Horse in a tab labeled The Nature Crow.

I read on some random note that putting a lot of links and suggestions in Substack newsletters feels like homework to readers. Mercy, I sure don’t want to give you homework. I didn’t even give homework when I taught sixth grade! Enjoy reading or not reading! Live your one, wild life!

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Happy first day of May!

When we were little, we made May baskets for our elderly neighbors. We constructed them from paper, sometimes from paper plates, and decorated them with construction paper flowers and ribbons. Then we filled them with real flowers and candy, and hung them on our neighbors’ doorknobs. Sometimes we rang the doorbell and said, “Happy May Day,” but we never handed our neighbors the baskets. They had to hang on the door.

That little memory is neither here nor there, but it popped out of my head like a child knocking on a door, inviting itself to the page, and who am I to turn it away?

The other day, one of those random Facebook memories also popped up. “Three years ago today,” it said. There I was with three friends. We were in a golf cart, driven by an attendent of a hotel where my friend Susan was staying. She was in town for a class reunion, a belated affair as the original one had been postponed due to Covid. Susan, Missy, Faye, and I are grinning like cats who ate canaries. How silly of us to hitch a ride downtown on a golf cart as if we were headed out to party like young hooligans!

We got off at our destination, a bar where none of us had ever been. This town, Auburn, is home of Auburn University. It belongs to the students. When we were young, it belonged to us, but now we are little old ladies acting silly in golf carts.

The music was too loud. The coeds were too scantily clad. The place was too crowded. We pushed our way through the dancing, sweating, flirting, puking crowd and found a table outside, where even there we could barely hear ourselves. Slowly, a few friends from high school drifted in. We shouted hellos over the music.

Two former schoolmates sat down across from me, Lisa and Kathy. I remembered them. They’d been best friends in high school, and in a surprise twist, Lisa had married Kathy’s brother. That was about all I knew.

“Hey,” Lisa, or maybe Kathy, said. “How have you been?”

And then, I did something out of character. I answered honestly, with full-on sincerity.

If I had said, “Oh fine, how about you?” my life would not be what it is now.

That one slip of the mind, that one lapse into vulnerability and courage, changed everything.

“Oh, okay, but I’m having a hard time. I really miss horses.”

I recently shared a video clip taken from Jasper’s back. He’s loping up a trail, his big body thudding along, his massive hooves pounding the dirt underneath us. His mane is flying in all directions, and a viewer can feel the adrenaline and energy of that short ride.

I sent a clip of it to Lisa and Kathy. Also to Greg, Lisa’s husband, Kathy’s brother.

“I love how happy riding Jasper makes Mary,” Kathy responded.

“Look at Pork Chop go!” Greg responded, Pork Chop being his nickname for Jasper, not me.

Lisa sent a heart emoji.

Yesterday, Greg, Chanoah (the horse trainer), Anna Marie (a riding stablehand), and I took a long trail ride. We let the horses eat a lot. I mean a lot. On the tracking app I use, periods of standing still show up as gray lines. There are more gray lines than any other color on yesterday’s ride. We talked about the drought, about the oddness of the winter grasses still growing green but the summer grasses not growing at all. We loped up a hill. We rode over to the newly-built saloon and tied the horses to the fence, pushed into the swinging doors, and Greg had a shot of whiskey.

I looked outside and saw one of the horses having a fit. By the time I got out there, he’d pulled out of his bridle, breaking his headstall. Chanoah brought him into the fenced area around the saloon. He walked over and air-tied himself next to his friend. She rode him back with a make-do balance rein, a rein tied around his neck.

Back at the barn, our veterinarian was checking on one of the horses who had recently bucked his rider off. The reason why remains a mystery, as he is sound and healthy. Next, she checked our mare Mo with an ultrasound, looking for a hearbeat. And there it was, the undeniable flutter of ay embryonic heart.

“Confirmed!” she said, “Look at that! Healthy, regular, everything is just right!” We congratulated Mo. I got teary-eyed. We were wary after finding our other mare, Sage, no longer in foal when we did this same thing last month with her, and this was welcome news.

With horse sweat on my jeans, manure on my boots, and spiderwebs and twigs in my hair, I met my girlfriends for dinner. I was the first to arrive, followed by Missy, then Lisa and Kathy. Soon the table was full. We’ve been having weekly girls’ nights for the last three years. Some nights we eat and drink too much. Some nights we cry. We always laugh. Old friendships are rekindled; new friendships are formed.

This morning, I sat down to catch up on my work, writing about the ranch. I sent a few texts to Lisa and Greg’s family, tidied up the missing links of what went on this month, and added photographs.

“Aren’t you going to the barn today?” my husband Joe asked. Not today. Too much to do. But most days, I go to the barn. Most days, I ride a horse. Most days, I ride Jasper.

Three years ago, I got in that golf cart and headed to a bar full of loud, drunk college kids with no inkling of what lay ahead. When I think of the razor’s edge of chance that brought me to this day, I shudder. What if I had sat somewhere else? What if I hadn’t mentioned horses? What if, what if, what if?

But then I watch that video of loping on Jasper, I conjure the hay-scented smell of the barn, the idyllic image of the melted, golden sun setting on the haybales and cows, the gentle nikering and snorting of the horses, and I remind myself that I did indeed land smack-dab on that razor’s edge.

Sometimes I say outloud, to random friends who didn’t ask, that I found my way back to horses and that I am never, ever, ever, ever, ever going back to a life without them.

I don’t know what would’ve happened if I’d missed that moment three years ago, but I do know this. If I had sat with this longing in my head, crying into my wine, bemoaning the decisions that allowed me to let horses go without acting on my pain, I would not be here. My boldness of announcing my intentions to the universe, of getting out of my sad mind and onto my feet, brought me around.

I’d already begun the process. I’d reached out to friends of friends, visited strangers’ homes to pat their horses, made arrangements to check out leasing a horse at a stable nearby, and announced to my family that a change was gonna come. I just didn’t know it would be this life that was around the corner.

And so, what is left for me to tell you, dear readers, is this. If you are missing something, needing something, dreaming of something, take the step toward it. Move your body. Pick up the phone. Pretend to be brave.

Tell a stranger who asks you how you are doing the truth. Bring it back. Grab the joy. And once you find it, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever let it go.

Thanks for being here.

Live wild and love hard.

:) Mary

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Oh, how glorious to be figuratively and literally back in the saddle! My heart is settled. I was dismissed with a diagnosis of Paroxysmal Atrial Tachycardia, which means I have an intermittently rapidly racing heart due to an electricial kink from my atrial chambers. I do believe I’ve had it since I was a teen. With the help of medicine, this is under control. All is well, and we needn’t dwell on that episode except to say that as usual, after fearfully facing the whirs and beeps and cold, slate walls of a hospital room at 2:30 in the morning, with doctors hovering bedside murmuring words like, “How puzzling,” and “ I’m flummoxed,” my life feels richer now, the love more fierce, the light slanting in surprising shades of gold and white and blue and green around me. Ah, life! You funky, floppy beast.

I want to tell you about my first day back at the farm, featuring Noel, that funny little charmer. She is an endless well of fresh delight.

Chanoah and I were walking Mo, the newly pregnant mare, because she had OF COURSE gotten a nasty cut on her leg and had to be stalled.

“Let’s go see the donkeys,” I said, as usual. Mo snorted and followed patiently. We found the donkeys quickly, close to the gate of the pasture we entered.

“What is she doing?” Chanoah said. “Why is she messing with that calf?”

Noel was aggressively bopping and pushing a new calf who was lying down in the grass, down a hill and far from the herd. Sometimes mama cows will leave their babies alone while they go off and eat. They somehow communicate to those babies to lie still and quiet and wait for them.

Noel has seen this a thousand times, but suddenly, Noel was having none of it. She pushed that baby onto its feet and continued to knock it along. Every time the calf turned around, Noel ran in a tight circle around it, lowering her head and guiding the poor baby up the hill.

“Noel, stop!” we yelled. Chanoah ran off toward the critters to make sure Noel hadn’t lost her mind. She finally convinced Noel to move along. The little calf chased after Noel and her mama a minute, then proceeded to run all around the pasture like a wild thing, in and out of the fencing, hugging the fenceline, exhausting itself.

I walked with Mo, slowly, toward Noel. “What was that all about, girl?” I asked her. Noel gently poked my hand. She and Mo touched muzzles and communicated something in equine-speak which caused them both to raise their heads and snort.

Some say donkeys aren’t truly good guardian animals because they are so fiercely territorial. If the donkeys aren’t raised around new calves, they might hurt the babies, not understanding that they share territory. But Noel has been with calves all her life. This behavior didn’t make sense.

Meahwhile, the poor bedraggled calf had dropped to an exhausted flop by a faraway gate.

It turned out that Chanoah recognized the little guy from the day before, when she’d seen it running around in the pasture in a similarly strange way. After some sluething, Chanoah learned that this calf’s mama was a new mama, and simply wasn’t taking care of her calf. Chanoah physcially hauled the calf to its mama, and after it nursed, the cow was receptive. All was righted in the cow herd, thank goodness. This season has had some ups and downs with the first-time mama cows.

This left us to ponder Noel’s strange behavior. After playing it over in our heads, we realized she pushing the calf toward the herd. She recognized something was off, that this was not just a baby napping while mama grazed.

“Oh, she knows,” the cow manager said when we ran it by him. “She always helps bring up the stragglers when I move the herd. She watches me and she knows exactly what to do.”

It’s true. Equines can learn by watching.

“What a good girl,” I’ve said to Noel on our subsequent visits. “Thank you for taking care of the calves.” She accepts her praise and asks for treats with her nimble nose.

We’re so proud of her. She did great cow work.

Lovely Laney looks on, as always, at our antics. She remains a dignified, beautiful donkey.

Here are two big announcements.

The first: I’m launching Behold, Essays Into Wonder on May 6, 2026, 4:00, at Pebble Hill in Auburn, AL. You are all invited. If you can’t come, I accept your “there in spirit” selves and feel your support and presence.

This book is my second collection of columns, with topics ranging from blue-blooded horseshoe crabs to the sex lives of hyenas, with personal memoir bits mixed in. If you enjoy deep dives into the wonderous, sometimes whimsical, always mystical ways of nature, human and otherwise, this is your book! Here is how you can get your copy.

• From me: Email me at maryfdansak@gmail.com with a name and address, and instructions for signing and/or inscribing. I’m on Venmo and PayPal under my name, Mary Dansak. Books from me are $17 + $5 for postage for a total of $22. I will send books once payment is received.

• From Amazon: You know how to do this.

• Alas, it is not available at the other venues at this time because I erred and did something wonky with my ISBN numbers which is corrected on Amazon but forever fatally flawed for other providers. I fear the whole publishing industry will fall apart because of my error but I carry on. If it all goes to hell, let’s keep this between us.

  

The second: My writing mentor and environmental hero, Janisse Ray, has a book coming out called Wild Branches: An Anthology of DNA Surprises. This book contains 29 personal tales from folks like me who learned something unexpected with the advent of DNA testing for the masses. Did I say folks like me? YES, I HAVE A STORY IN THE BOOK! Mix my deep, southern-fried conviction to tell family stories with my yankee husband’s closed-mouth shrugging off of this pasttime with our middle child’s school project about our family tree and yes, it is indeed a story, story, morning glory. I am thrilled to be a part of this endeavor! You can learn more, and follow the progress of the publication journey here on Kickstarter. Please join the wild branch!

More to come on all of this. This feels like a lot for one newsletter. Life isn’t slowing down, is it?

Oh, but there’s more. I’ll be speaking at the Down to Earth Fair at Whispering Hills Natural Cemetery on May 2, 2026. The theme of this day is Legacy, and I’ll be talking about Writing as Legacy from my position as a Legacy Writer at G&L Farms.

There will be food and fun, horses and honey, frolicking and music, all in the setting of a gorgeous nature preserve. Those near to LaGrange, Georgia might want to come join us as we celebrate sustainable burials, gardens, living, and the great outdoors.

Surprises. Surprises with my heart, with Noel’s behavior, with the suddenness of these events creeping up, with DNA secrets, with the outrageous greening of spring turning to summer before my eyes.

What is surprising you lately?

Live wild, love hard, be you, you, glorious you,

Mary

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Greetings from room 2132 at East Alabama Medical Center, our local hospital, where I’ve been since Friday with a heart that is unsettled, plummeting and soaring a range of heartbeats a minute. I’ll be heading to Birmingham to see an electrophysiologist tomorrow, maybe. Or maybe I’ll wake up all settled and set.

One minute I was on a bareback ride, the next in an ambulance. Buckle up. Life is wonky.

Some time ago, I promised a six-minute video of a ride on Jasper, which I now present below. Whether you are horsey or not, this video gives you a hundred and one chances to see the horse-human connection at work.

Jasper and I aren’t rocket loping, doing fancy maneuvers, or showing our prowess in the arena. It’s mostly just Jasper and me, out for a solo walkabout while waiting for Chanoah to arrive and join us on Buck.

Can you spot the hundreds of unique commands and scenes Jasper had to learn to confidently ride out with me, even on this simple ride? Every interaction with a horse is a training session for both you and the horse. What is Jasper learning on this ride? What am I learning?

It’s staggering, really, that these magnificent animals let us crawl on their backs at all. I sure do love these horses, especially Jasper.

News: We are thrilled that Mo is in foal, for those keeping up. We had bad news, however. Sage, who was successfully implanted in February and has had good checkups has slipped her foal, the horsey phrase for spontaneously aborting. She will return to the vet school this week for round two.

Due to these odd circumstances, clicking away from the hospital bed on my iPad with my thumb all concocted with an oxygen probe, I’m ending here.

Love hard, live wild, take care of yourself,

:) Mary

PS: As promised, I am not sending my columns to your email. Please see the section called The Nature Crow to catch up on any you might’ve missed.

"Spring is here! Spring has sprung! The bird is on the wing.

My my, how absurd, I thought the wing was on the bird.”

This is from the book Remember Me When This You See. When I was little, I used this book for inspiration for all my handmade Valentines, as well as for ditties to write in folks’ autograph books.

On this first day of spring, amidst celebrants exalting, “Welcome Spring!” and other elated cries, in my mind, I answer, “Spring is here! Spring has sprung! The bird is on the wing!” Et cetera.

We had a private ranch-roping clinic last weekend. I can’t throw a rope at all lately due to an injury at my C6 vertebra. But I can practice groundwork and horsemanship, and I can wander around in the arena on the back of my pretty, pretty pony and watch and record, laugh and celebrate, and marvel over the intricate and precise throws the instructor, Taylor McIntosh, executed.

Just beyond the arena, horses gathered to watch our shenanigans. Jasper booped noses across the wooden fence with his buddy Buck. Anna Marie rode up beside me on Stovepipe, and Honey wandered over to boop noses too. Behind me, horses and riders and little Corriente cows kicked up the dust. The humans laughed, and if horses and cows laugh, I’m sure they were laughing too.

With Jasper reaching over to nibble Buck’s neck and Buck returning the favor, the crows in the pine trees cawing, the afternoon breeze kicking up the metallic scent of Alabama red dirt, the light on the barn shifting from white to gold, and I, surrounded in 360 degrees by horses, the moment was perfect.

“I love horses,” I said to Anna Marie. “Don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said.

Behind us, Chanoah yelled, “Hey, I caught one with a Houlihan!”

A Confession

My husband Joe was out of town yesterday and I planned to get So Much Done. Instead, I frittered. I decided to embroider something even though I’ve never embroidered a thing in my life. I made Lazy Daises and back stitched some words. Then I sat at my computer and got all my notebooks out and pondered how I should use each one, contemplating changes, feeding my notebook obsession. I organized my pens. I wrote down my dream from the night before. I went outside to check on the may apples, and wandered around digging around the little brown jugs. I took the dogs on a walk. I went to the barn for a short visit to meet the veterinarian. I met three friends for dinner.

Then I felt all out of sorts because I hadn’t worked on any of my projects or done any cleaning. Then I felt all out of sorts because what’s wrong with frittering anyway?

Questions for You

What is frittering? Do you fritter? What do you do when you fritter away your time? Do you feel guilty about it?

Horse Updates

Sage is a month pregnant. An ultrasound showed a perfect yolk sac and a perfect squiggle of cells which is a baby horse. Mo was inseminated yesterday. We’ll check for a viable pregnancy in two weeks.

For those interested, here are links to their stallions:

SJR Metallic Oak for Sage (Kisses N Heaven), and Metallic Cat for Mo (Just Jeanne).

For those supremely interested, the mares’ photographs on our website are linked to their registration papers.

You will see that our mares do not come from roping, reining, or cutting lines. What you cannot see on their papers is that they are both excellent trail horses with good minds, gentle temperaments, and keen responsiveness to training.

Maybe by breeding them outside their discipline their babies will get the best of both parents plus some robust genetics from good old hybrid vigor.

Spring is here, spring has sprung! I’m exalting and enthralled, again and again, with the beauty of the budding flowers and birdsong and frisky horse energy and neon green glint and memories of May baskets and Easter and the lizards basking on rocks.

Love hard, live wild,

Mary

Share

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Greetings,

In my last newsletter, I announced that our* mare Sage had been inseminated. Today, I am pleased to announce that she is pregnant, or “in foal” as is said in horse breeding lingo, which I am rapidly learning.

If my twelve-year-old self had seen me standing with the veterinarian, who was armpit-deep into Sage’s body giving her an ultrasound, discussing progesterone and uterine horns, I’d have not been one bit surprised. My twelve-year-old self would have said that was the plan all along.

But if you’d presented the same scenario to my twenty-four to fifty-five-year-old-self, I’d have been shocked to the bone. During that time, I could not imagine a pathway back to my truest true self, which I had let slip away while trying to be the perfect version of a self I thought I should be.

The last few weeks at the ranch have been gorgeous as our winter slips toward spring. The winter woods are open, free for the moment of hunters. The horses are eager to be on the trails, snacking on new shoots and snorting and pawing at detritus on the trails. My twelve-year-old self and my sixty-one-year-old self ride along in one body now, integrated with each other and with the horse, the Alabama forest, and the changing season. And the big, fat moon. Don’t forget the big, fat moon who shone bright and buttery last week before redding all over in a lunar eclipse.

For the last two years, I’ve been working on using my body to move my horse. Now, Greg, who owns the twenty-two horses plus two donkeys who in turn own my heart, wants us riding in bosal hackamores, bit-less contraptions that demand leg cues, body cues, and ever-so-slight cues from the reins, one rein at a time.

Jasper seems to think all this is great fun. He can eat better in a hackamore, after all. We were off the other day, heading out to check on the progress of a recently cleared pasture. Chanoah suggested we lope through the pasture. “Are you ready?” she said.

Upon which Jasper took off like a rocket, twenty miles-an-hour, a powerhouse under my body. My mecate rein, and extra rein that I’m supposed to loop through my belt loop but I don’t because it won’t stay, was flapping along. The reins in my hand, those reins that I’m never, ever, ever supposed to pull on at the same time, and never to apply steady pressure to, became my balancing tool. I broke all the rules and Jasper charged ahead.

Laughing and thrilling, I finally managed to get one rein under control and slowed the boy down, turning him a bit in the process. “What is that all about, boy?” I asked him. I wondered if he’d run like that, in that same pasture with that same cue, without me on his back. I cannot imagine. What goes through his head when he runs like the wind? Sheer joy of being alive? Is he feeling my twelve-year-old self under this sixty-one-year-old body?

My twelve-year-old self had no notion of trying to slow my horse down. I let him run full speed whenever he wanted to, even let him run towards home. He would never need to be “grandchild safe.” I would fly on my black Pegasus, the rhythm of his body like the beating of great, mythical wings.

Maybe Jasper knows that twelve-year old is still there. Maybe he feels an obligation to bring her out every now and then. Or maybe he’s just a wild thing.

Noel is fine, I hear you asking. She and Laney continue to keep watch over the cattle, and herd them when they get moved from pasture to pasture. Noel looks like an alien creature again, like she did last year. I know that as she sheds out, she’ll only look crazier, and then, one day I’ll find a sleek, beautiful young donkey filly. I don’t know how long these cycles will continue, or when she will look like a normal donkey during the spring shed. For now, I’ll take her honkey-cat self, still rushing up for scratches and treats, still knowing no boundaries.

Upcoming activities at G&L Farms (which you can follow on Facebook if interested) include inseminating our mare Mo in her next heat if possible, and hosting a private clinic with horse trainer Taylor McIntosh.

Upcoming writer events include being a guest at a large city-wide book club, and speaking at the Auburn University Collegiate Horsemen as a guest speaker. These are both private events.

My last two newspaper columns are on my Substack, at The Nature Crow. Considering Progress, Lamenting Loss was inspired by a Facebook post about a huge new development in our town. “It’s called progress,” one woman commented. I had to write about it. This column generated more feedback in my hometown than any of the previous one-hundred-ninety-one columns I’ve written, all positive.

My Bout With Tuberculosis was inspired by my sense of being overwhelmed by my To Be Read pile. As I do when I’m overwhelmed, I did something other than doing the thing which would alleviate my panic. I wrote.

I’ve linked the columns via their titles above, honoring the promise I made recently not to flood your emails.

What are you doing that serves your twelve-year-old self, and how does your current self feel about it? I’m fascinated by the return of this greatness in myself and many others I know and know of, and would love to hear your thoughts.

Have a great couple of weeks,

Live wild, love hard, be you,

Mary

*Having worked for over two years now as a legacy writer and special projects coordinator at the ranch, I use possessive pronouns in my writing. This is a disclaimer to say that I own neither the ranch nor the animals.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

While riding my chokiest, handsome Boy Jasper yesterday, I got a phone call from the local large animal reproductive unit. The veterinarian had just inseminated our Appaloosa mare, Sage, with frozen semen from a very fine stallion, SJR Metallic Oak, who lives in central Texas.

“I feel like a grandmother, all excited for my girl!” I said to Chanoah while guiding Jasper out of the sinking, orange mud which he found the moment I became distracted.

“You are! You’re the Barn Mimi,” Chanoah reminded me.

“On the count of three, we’re going to race up that hill,” Greg chimed in. The four of us riders gathered our reins, our horses, and our wits. Jasper, as usual, took the lead. He is ridiculously competitive, and his enormous hind end obediently turbo-charges his big body.

After a glorious ride which included blue skies, brand new forget-me-nots in the pastures, and loping along overgrown trails in the woods which led me to a serious scratch on my neck from an unforgiving vine, my thoughts returned to Sage.

Sage and Mo, another fine mare on the ranch, have been preparing for motherhood now since December, when we began putting them in Equilume masks to keep their reproductive cycles from shutting down with the decreased winter sunshine. These masks have a small blue light over one eye, nonintrusive, which comes on at 4:00 pm and shuts off at 11:00 pm daily.

Although I had no idea what I was getting into, the task of arranging contracts for semen fell to me. Greg chose Mo’s stallion, Metallic Cat. Metallic Cat’s so fancy. He even made a cameo on the TV show Yellowstone, which I’ve never seen.

I was in charge of narrowing down prospects for Sage’s stallion.

After searching for stallions who met our criteria, I made a spreadsheet featuring sixteen gorgeous boys and began calling ranches all over the country for information on them. We chose SJR Metallic Oak (barn name Dak) for his lineage, his performance, and his stunning good looks. Of course, all the stallions on my spreadsheet are well bred, perform beautifully, and are gorgeous. Dak’s selling point was the way his owner, Kirk Johnston, talked about him. Enthusiasm and love are contagious.

Sage is now ready to come home. My heart swells with pride for her reports from the veterinarian, who said Sage was well behaved and gentle. She’ll have a pregnancy check with our ranch veterinarian in two weeks. In two more weeks, maybe Mo will be ready for her big day.

Last night, untacking sweaty Jasper in the barn, telling him how much I love him even though he ran me into the woods, I tried to imagine this same barn this time next year, with Sage and a three-week-old colt in one big stall, and Mo getting ready to deliver in a big stall beside her.

I have so many unanswered questions about all of this. Will we sell the colts? Will there be more babies born here? In the meantime, I’ll try not to wish away a year just to get to the little ones, who, if all goes as planned, will arrive in January and February 2027.

Of course, I have my own precious, love-of-my-life baby donkey, Noel, who is now a whole year and two months old. She was such a good girl getting her vaccinations recently. Noel lets us put a halter on her easily. She was not happy about being tied, but she tolerated it. Laney, her mama, is not so docile. Chanoah had to rope her to get her vaccinated. Afterwards, both girls came right up to us for treats, the trauma of the needles immediately forgotten.

Bits and Bobs

Rebranding again! While holding onto The Nature Crow, which is actually the name of my column, I’ve titled this publication Look Homeward, Horse. I’ll be sending a newsletter, Ride Along, twice a month. From now on, my columns, located in the tab The Nature Crow, will be available on Look Homeward, Horse, but I will not send them to your emails. I’ll link them in the newsletters.

Ride Along will feature tales from the ranch and other bits and bobs. I’ve tinkered and toyed with my newsletter, but you, dear subscribers, have spoken loud and clear, telling me with comments and other forms of engagement what you enjoy most. I’m listening.

Have a wonderful weekend, and thank you for being here.

Live wild and love hard,

:) Mary

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Greetings fellow crows,

Day breaks on this morning after the Bad Bunny Show, which I liked very much even though I didn’t understand the words or the symbolism. Now I’m sipping coffee and reading about what I saw, and I like it even more. Always be learnin’, someone said.

I remember when rap was new (to me). I told my husband Joe that I didn’t like it. He said, “There’s room for all.” I hope that was my last enormous blanket dismissal of a thing I don’t understand. I want to be like my late mother who laughed cheerfully when she didn’t understand pop culture; she didn’t scoff or dismiss new or untidy trends. Likewise, my step-parents, who harbor the same curious energy. And our daughters and son-in-law, new ideas brim and flow from their brilliant brains into mine, hallelujah.

In this spirit, I’ll share a couple of things I’m learning this week.

I gave a talk at Auburn University’s OLLI Brown Bag Series about my path as a writer, equestrian, and naturalist. I read from my diary from when I was nine years old, scraps of paper on which I’d written laments and longings in high school, and unpolished stories about my writer’s life. Guests received my presentation well, and a few told me they were inspired to write more. Of all the feedback I ever get, “inspiring” is probably my favorite.

What I am learning: Share vulnerability and tales of uncertainty. Growth is more inspiring than perfection.

I am pleased with this review of Box Turtles, Hooligans, and Love, Sweet Love from The Alabama Writers’ Forum by Cindy Ragland. Click the quote below to visit the page and read it in its entirety.

(Dansak) marries her explorations with the everyday perspective of a mother, wife, sister, and daughter. She nudges us so gently to consider humans within the context of the natural world.

When I first published this book, a year ago this month, I didn’t have a teeny, tiny clue what I was doing. I copied other authors, I watched tutorials, I took classes, and I pretended I was a real, live bone fide writer. I sent a copy of my book for review to The Alabama Writers’ Forum with a wish and a prayer. I’d almost given up on getting a review when BING, I got an email a few days ago with the link.

What I am learning: Be brave and be patient.

I’m enrolled in a course called Journaling Place with Janisse Ray. She frequently offers these journaling courses, usually on a pay-what-you-want basis. On Sunday afternoons, I plug into a Zoom meeting and spend an hour in community with Janisse, her guests, and a cadre of creative and inspiring participants. Here is a sketch I did of My Natural Allies a few weeks ago, as inspired by Jane Pike, who began realizing her own natural allies as an antidote to anxiety. “Loneliness is a state of mis-attention,” she said, and encouraged us to spend the first twenty minutes of the day focusing on who shows up for us.

What I am learning: Oh dear, it’s the same lesson I’ve been working on all my life. Pay attention. Pay attention. Pay attention. Here the curl of a leaf, there the burl of a tree.

I’d love to hear what you are working on and what you are learning.

Have a lovely week, surrounded by allies and new experiences.

Live wild, love hard, be you.

Mary

For a while, I was so overwhelmed by the good fortune I’ve had to find my way back to horses that the whole world felt gilded and polished by the wonder of it all. I was boring and could only, only drone on and on about horses. HORSES. I LOVE HORSES. And now, two years and seven months in, I am just living my life. It’s the life I dreamed of when I was a kid, only in that life, the horses were mine, and there were only three horses. In my fantasy, I could stand and look out at my three horses from the kitchen sink. So I guess it’s not exactly the life I dreamed of. In some ways, it’s better.

From my kitchen sink, I can usually see birds, including an occasional pileated woodpecker or red-tailed hawk, and lots of trees. Oaks, hickories, pines, sweetgums, and tulip poplars greet me from every direction. And so many squirrels and chipmunks. No horses, but with a twenty minute drive I’m in the midst of the horse and cattle ranch where I spend about half my days.

There were days, no, decades, when I did not see this life as possible. It’s all a blur now. It clears just a tad when I pull my sleeve over my wrist and wipe it clean. There I am, sitting in the kitchen surrounded by piles of homework and bookbags and lunches to make, grading papers while nursing a baby, scratching a dog with my foot. There I am, racing out the door at 6:20 a.m. to drop three girls off at three different schools and gunning it to get to my own school on time where I’ll corral a hundred and twenty-five middle-school children in and out of desks, science labs, oh the humanity, all day after day. There I am, staying up until three in the morning just to have a bit of time to myself, then getting up at five to start the day.

Here I am today, riding a horse with a friend, checking the cows, the fences, the donkeys. Grooming, tacking, feeding, the hours pass like seconds. The smell of horses and hay, and then the big-ass moon coming up over the trees, orange and sherbety and full as the fat Buddha’s belly. The six-point buck jumping over the wooden fence when we walked by. He disappeared into the night.

Here I am, and here you will be too, someday, for those of you are working all the time and struggling to find a minute to breathe, much less remember what your dreams are.

The thing is, you have to really want those dreams, you have to mourn their absence and weep into your wine, and then, when you hit the bottom, you have to shout it at the top of your lungs and make all kinds of crazy lists and reach out to total strangers and let the big, wobbly world know that YOU NEED YOUR DANG DREAM.

And if your body won’t do it, or your job won’t relent, then you have to go back to being a kid and collect all kinds of gee-gaws and talismans to remind yourself of your dream. You have to buy tacky blankets at Dollar General with horses on them, and you have to pick up stickers at the grocery store and stick them on your notebooks, and do not, no matter what, care what anyone else thinks about your printed t-shirts and your obsessive reading lists.

And of course, there’s the lottery of health and a good retirement plan if you worked for the state, and a strange window of time after both your parents die and your step parents are still kicking like mules and your kids are taking care of themselves and so is your husband and you have this glorious spot when you can be you, and oh, did I drift off into the fantasy of all women now?

And of course, you have to let go of control, the clean house, the organized life, the nice clothes, the la-ti-da of it all. Unless that’s your thing, then dive right in and live it wild and be happy.

Anyway, those are my thoughts today.

In other news, I’ve finally put my book onto IngramSpark and Draft2Digital, which allows me this lovely link to share so that folks can buy my book from retailers OTHER than Amazon because, well, because.

Live wild, love hard, dream your ever-loving wildest dreams,

Mary

P.S. Are you local? You are invited to this OLLI Brown Bag Series presentation. Please come!

Share

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

This newsletter has a link to purchase a brand new edition of Box Turtles, Hooligans, and Love, Sweet Love at a 25% Apeman Discount.

My husband Joe plays music all the time, often timely. It is one of the things I love about him. Right now, he’s got the Kinks “Life Goes On” on repeat. Ray Davies sings through his charming, gap-toothed, smiling mouth,

“Tornado, cyclone and hurricane
Can batter the houses with the thunder and rain
Blizzards can blow; the waves hit the shore
But the people recover and come back for more
Somehow the people fight back, even if the future looks black
Life goes on and on and on
Life goes on and on and on.”

Ray Davies was born in London in June, 1944. When he was two days old, his sister picked her baby brother up out of his cot and walked out of the kitchen. Just moments later, a German V-2 bomb landed nearby and shattered the kitchen window, sending shards of glass exploding into the baby’s cot. Ray Davies narrowly escaped being killed by a bomb when he was a tiny infant.

Life goes on and on and on.

Some things I can’t image, like growing up playing on bomb sites, which is how Ray describes scenes from his childhood.

Another song Joe has on repeat lately, another by The Kinks, is “Apeman.” If you need a refresher, here is the second verse:

“I think I'm so educated and I'm so civilized
'Cause I'm a strict vegetarian
But with the over-population and inflation and starvation
And the crazy politicians
I don't feel safe in this world no more
I don't want to die in a nuclear war
I want to sail away to a distant shore and make like an apeman.”

“Apeman” is one of my favorite songs on this whole ding-dong planet. Sometimes I sing it at the top of my lungs. Like all day yesterday.

Anyway, today I’m thinking about how much I love The Kinks, and how strange it is that some folks can grow up surrounded by the rubble of bombs and write and sing beautiful music anyway, while right here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, folks around me who grew up in beautiful homes and neighborhoods seem hell-bent on tearing apart every system that has kept them safe their whole lives.

I’m always on the side of the creators. And I’m inexplicably touched by those who thrill over the beauty and whimsy and mystery of life through awful times.

Any fans of The Kinks out here? Here’s a link to “Apeman” to get you going.

I just got my first box of new books yesterday. I have twenty copies of the second edition of Box Turtles, Hooligans, and Love Sweet Love sitting on my table. I feel confident that reading the essays within will make you smile, give you glimmers of hope, offer you fresh perspectives on wild things, and provide brief respite from fear. I’m offering these first twenty books at a 25% discount to put feet behind my faith.

Click the photo for the link to order.

Isn’t Bernie the dog cute? His name is Bernie Sanders. Friday, at his vet check, the good doctor said, “Bernie has the heart of a lion.” One thing Bernie does every morning is run outside, sit in the woodsy yard, look up at the sky, and bark for five minutes. We don’t know what he’s barking at. Sometimes I join him.

I’m an apeman.

Live wild, love hard, be you, and for those in the USA, call your elected representatives daily,

:) Mary

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment