Stories

Evelyn:  I am discovering new ways to make my way to and from Clearwater. With monsoon rains slowing down traffic on the main highway, I risked being late for P3 tonight and drove north on 275 for a short stint to catch a county road. I eventually drove almost the entire ride back on Knights Griffith, NPR's "This American Life" storying the ride, where lush Colombian-like farms, mossy trees, and fields of cattle against backdrops of storm clouds filled my eyes and heart with such beauty I could melt.  Dozens of times I wanted to stop and just take it all in, however I had yet another place to be and instead I held my camera up as I passed by fields in hopes of capturing the stunning beauty of the little towns I moved through. I look forward to this drive again, uninterrupted by commitments, and I promise myself a moment to visit with the cows.

Monica: I was just telling someone about these earrings the other day. When I was about 9 years old, I got two pearls out of a single oyster at Sea World—a rare find that made me feel especially lucky—and for years I kept them in a locked box along with my passport & birth certificate and the gold jewelry my Colombian relatives had gifted me over the years. I held onto them, thinking that someday I'd do something with them, not really knowing what. At my first "real job" out of college, one of my coworkers was a jeweler, and I saved up my money to commission him to make some earrings for my mother's 50th birthday. I designed them and he made them, exactly as I'd envisioned. My mother loved them when she saw them and they've been her favorite pair of earrings ever since.