For the next several weeks, I attended church when I could. Participation often included lowering my eyes when the bishop or his first counselor walked by and gave me stern “We’re watching you” stares. In some ways the whole business…
Author: Patricia Karamesines
Patricia blogged at Times and Seasons between 2007 and 2009. Patricia was born in Petersburg, Virginia, to two human parents…but was actually raised by the wild turtles of the Virginia Piedmont, which may explain her flaming biophilia. She joined the LDS church when she was sixteen. In 1976, she moved to Utah to attend BYU. Her M.A. is from BYU (creative writing), and she pursued post-graduate studies in folklore and linguistics at the University of Arizona. Her interests include folklore, language and relation, and literary science and nature writing. She has won numerous literary awards from Brigham Young University, the University of Arizona, the Utah Arts Council, the Utah Wilderness Association, and the Association for Mormon Letters, among others. She has published in literary journals and popular magazines locally and nationally. Her first novel, The Pictograph Murders, was released fall of 2004 (Signature Books). She lives in San Juan County, Utah, with her husband Mark and three children, an uncertain number of toads, lizards, and swallows, and about thirty hummingbirds that run the place during the summer. Currently, she is an adjunct faculty member teaching English at the San Juan Campus of the College of Eastern Utah, and a regular contributor to the One True Bloggernacle Arts Blog, William Morris’s A Motley Vision.
True Adventures in Turning the Other Cheek, Pt. One
Preface. At the risk of running afoul of Nate’s post on turning the other cheek—that is, of appearing obnoxiously immodest and of proving myself once again impossibly dense—I’m telling a story about how I received one of the best lessons…
The Downstream Principle of Language
I’m posting this at Times and Seasons as follow-up to a three-part series I wrote here a couple years back (see here, here and here). I’ve cross-posted it over at A Motley Vision’s companion blog Wilderness Interface Zone. September 17th…
M Gets a Joke
A while back our household sat down to watch an episode of Monk. We like Monk because not only is it funny, it’s also sad and tender and offers good – sometimes very good – cultural satire. As I fed…
Bittersweet Sixteen: Part Three
Like many people dependent upon care from others, M can be a tyrant. For instance, sensing my anxiousness during her feedings, when it’s crucial to get enough into her to sustain her plus stimulate her slow growth curve, she’s begun…
Bittersweet Sixteen: Part Two
So there I was, staring the lavishness of my ignorance. I saw the presence it had in the world, how it could impoverish and destroy as efficiently as the most inspired scientific breakthrough could improve somebody’s standard of living. Before…
Bittersweet Sixteen: Part One
Many parents with severely disabled children live life underground. Apart from society’s burbling mainstreams, they labor beneath the weight of exigent circumstances, dealing with mortal crises day by day. They monitor their child’s breathing, their sleeping, their every bodily function,…
Why Joseph Went to the Woods
Joseph Smith went to the woods because he wished to know the truth of his existence.
A Walk into the Moon
I hope some of you grabbed your moon glasses and stepped outside to have a look at how that full moon lights up the world. Thirty thousand miles closer than usual and thirty percent brighter, tonight this lesser light has…
If I’m Not Alexander, I Must Be Diogenes
The textbook I used when I taught freshman comp at BYU contains an essay by Gilbert Highet titled “Diogenes and Alexander.†This well embellished tale recounts the legendary maybe-it-happened, maybe-it-didn’t visit that Alexander the Great paid to the notorious Cynic…
Women Who Know
… grow tomatoes in their home garden, and lots of them. Men who know grow them, too.
Crossfire Canyon: A study in conflict, part three
See Part Two posted 9/27. On September 22nd, I rose early and hiked into Crossfire. Afterward, I stopped at the local market and ran into a women I’d seen at the BLM’s open house, one of the most vocal SPEAR…
Crossfire Canyon: A study in conflict, part two
See Part One here. On September 18th, the BLM held an open house explaining the closure to local residents. The BLM’s acting field manager opened the presentation, telling everyone that the purpose of the closure was to stop traffic through…
Crossfire Canyon: A study in conflict, part one
Crossfire Canyon is not the canyon’s real name. Following the trend in nature writing, I have refrained from providing any obvious identifying names or details. Otherwise, this three-part series describes actual events and conversations. Mormons in Utah, especially in southern…
Guilting the Lily
In the Preface to New Genesis: A Mormon Reader on Land and Community, the editors cite an unidentified 1991 report that places each of the thirty largest Christian denominations in one of five categories based on their environmental stances.
Story Time!
The day before the cliff swallows return to traditional nesting sites in canyons near where I live in southern Utah, the sky hangs quiet, with only a few ravens, hawks, and eagles spiraling through. The next day, whoosh! Swallows arrive…
Field Notes #4
It is the destiny of mint to be crushed. –Waverley Lewis Root June 12, 2007 Rained most of the night. Morning’s cool and sweet. Good day to venture into a canyon. Because the storm has left behind puffy white seeds…
Quality
Warning: To write this post, I’ve had to get personal. I apologize in advance for that, but some points I make require grounding in my observations about personal experiences, many of which are highly charged. The stories and observations I…
Fields Notes #3
Who I am is not enough. It is necessary to become more. May 3, 2007 Been out of action nearly a month due to injury from hiking in broken-down boots. Finally bought new boots. Two days ago I made it…
Field Notes #2
We might use language in our attempts to set boundaries, but language contains in microcosmic acts the macrocosmic thrust toward new form. November 4, 2006 The trail into the canyon is rougher at November’s threshold; run-off from recent storms took…