​It’s Halloween. The tiniest of the ghosts and goblins, the ones too young to even utter the infamous “Trick or Treat”, will start arriving soon. Their parents will hover close, fingers crossed as they hope their kiddos will remember their manners.
 
I know this because I was one of those parents, a quarter of a century ago.
 
The older costumed kids won’t be far behind. There will be big and small groups of them, holding out a variety of creative bags to collect their treasures. The overly ambitious will lug around pillow cases. Children of traditionalists will hold out plastic pumpkin bowls. Most will remember to thank us for the candy we toss in their bowls, and the lucky ones will have the door opened by my husband. He’s quick to toss in handfuls of treats for each kid, while I hover in the background and worry that we’ll run out of candy before we run out of trick-or-treaters. It’s like a snapshot of our vastly different personalities.
 
Halloween is all about the kids.
 
When our kids were young, we didn’t buy the fancy packaged costumes from Target or the Halloween stores. It was always more fun to take trips to a thrift store or our own closets, then we'd maybe buy the accessories or makeup that would elevate our handmade outfits from old clothes to one-of-a-kind creations.
 
I remember spending hours at my seldom used sewing machine, crafting a darling Humpty Dumpty costume and a colorful clown costume, complete with a red, curly wig for our first born (back before clowns gave me the creeps).
 
By the time child number two arrived, this busy momma no longer had time to sew, but we still worked hard to make sure our kids had fun costumes. Unfortunately, some years the blustery weather of a North Dakota Halloween thwarted our efforts, but the best costumes fit over winter coats and snow pants.

​When the kids were young, our front bay window was our focus for Halloween decorations. We’d work hard to place carved pumpkins, blinking lights, and plenty of cobwebs just right, welcoming the neighborhood kids to our door. My decorating efforts dwindled once they were all out of the house, but this year was different.
 
This year, I pulled out all the old tubs of decorations again. Two things prompted this resurgence of excitement to decorate. First, I hosted our neighborhood Bunco group here on the 18th, and it was fun to set the ambience with orange lights and flickering candles. Plus, I needed an excuse to pull out the old gold lamp I picked up at an estate sale last year. It takes up way too much space in my basement for ninety-five percent of the year, but I love it. 

This year’s decorating efforts were also reinvigorated by little Milo, our 8-month-old (first) grandchild. He loves the glow of the bright orange pumpkin lights inside Grandma’s curio cabinet, even if he doesn’t have a clue about Halloween yet. I can’t wait to see him in his Jack-Jack costume tonight. Too bad his wispy blond hair doesn’t stand up as well as it did when he was a newborn.

​Years ago, October also meant watching classic movies with the kids. The “Halloweentown” series was always a favorite, along with “Twitches” and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”. No one was crazy about the original “Hocus Pocus” in our house, but I admit to sitting down with our now 21-year-old earlier this month to watch the new “Hocus Pocus 2”. There were plenty of laughs, especially the scenes where the centuries-old witches discovered the promises of anti-aging “potions” in the drugstore! Maybe their delight hit too close to home for me.

​Pumpkin carving evenings with our college-aged kids provide more recent favorite Halloween memories. I failed in our first attempt at a party, waiting too long to buy the pumpkins. I remember stopping to pick them up on my way home after a busy day at the office. Of course, I waited until the very night the kids would all be there to carve.
 
It must have been a tough year for pumpkins, because I couldn’t find a single one! After rushing from store to store, my panic rising, I got creative. If carving pumpkins is fun, carving gourds would be just as cool. Maybe even better, since they come in more unique colors and shapes.
 
If you’ve ever tried to carve a gourd before, you’re already smiling. Did you know that the shell of a gourd is much, much harder to cut through than a pumpkin?
 
Our daughter’s new boyfriend joined us for that ill-fated pumpkin carving party, and he was the only one in the bunch that refused to be deterred. Everyone else gave up. His tenacity to cut through that nearly impenetrable shell was telling. We are now proud to call that young man our son-in-law, and I’m still relieved his knife didn’t slip and sever a finger. I’ve never been a fan of Halloween gore.
 
Another year, we kept the pumpkins in the garage until the big night. You can imagine the stampede of six or seven big bodies, pushing and shoving to get to them first for the best selection. They came armed with big ideas, but didn’t always have the skill or patience required to see their imagined creations through to fruition. But it didn’t matter. The evenings would end with all of them sitting under the bay window we used to decorate together, showing off their artistic abilities.

​For me, Halloween is about the memories we’ve made and the opportunity to make new ones with our expanding family. I know some people love Halloween, and some hate it. That’s fine. One of our kids has never been a fan, either. 

​There are aspects of Halloween I’ve never liked, either. I refuse to watch the gory movies and find overly sexy or gross costumes silly. I think of Halloween as a time for kids to play make-believe. It may be the only time in a child’s life when he or she can feel like a princess, or a pony, or a superhero.
 
I also love the warm colors of October, captured so beautifully by nature in crisp leaves, round pumpkins, and crisp apples. It’s the simple pleasure of sneaking a third (or fourth) miniature candy bar out of the black candy bowl on the one night we can cheat without feeling guilty.
 
Halloween is a time of transition. Where I live, we are leaving behind the warmth of summer and moving into the darker, colder months of winter. Soon we will thaw turkeys, make lists of gifts we want to buy for loved ones, and pull out the tubs of Christmas decorations. This brief holiday serves as a doorway from one season to another.

Wishing you a spooky good evening,  Kim 

“I wonder if Grandpa Les ever knew Louis L’ Amour?”
 
The question popped into my brain a few weeks ago as I stood in front of a plexiglass-covered display case holding an impressive collection of vintage paperback westerns, all written by Louis L’ Amour. The compilation resides inside a quaint writing shack at the Frontier Fort, a tourist attraction located in Jamestown, ND. The town has a population of less than twenty thousand, but it proudly boasts of being hometown to a number of famous individuals including singer Peggy Lee and writer Louis L’ Amour. 

​I remember Grandpa Les, my maternal grandfather, as a quiet man who played lots of golf after retiring from the post office. Grandpa almost always left a Louis L’ Amour paperback sitting on the table next to his recliner.
 
Isn’t it funny what our minds recall about our loved ones from our early years?
 
Jamestown also happens to be my hometown. If you’ve ever driven through central North Dakota on I94 and passed by, chances are you did a double take if you spied the “World’s Largest Buffalo” just off the highway. This 26’ tall concrete structure has stood over the Frontier Fort since before I was born, and I know I’ve visited ‘the Buffalo’ at least once, every single summer.
 
Favorite activities during these annual visits used to include playing in the railroad cars, followed by sticky fingers from dripping cones piled high with scoops of hard ice cream. I even have vague memories of skipping down to a cave in the hillside below the giant statue when I was a kid, but there are no caves now, so either my mind is playing tricks on me or the cave was filled in, perhaps deemed unsafe. This year, a rope blocks the entrance to the remaining railroad car and the shop with the ice cream was empty.
 
While some old favorites at ‘the Buffalo’ (we never call it the Frontier Fort) are gone, new exhibits are being added. Change is a constant, even back home.
 
This brings me back to where I started with this post, and why I insisted on visiting the Louis L’ Amour writing shack before it closed for the season. I’d picked up a well-loved (aka worn) copy of one of his books from a used bookstore earlier this summer, and I wanted to get some pictures of it alongside other mementos from the famous author’s career. 

​This writing shack exhibit has grown in significance for me as I continue to immerse myself in the world of writing. Chances are that if you love old westerns, you’ve heard of Louis L’ Amour. As I stood reading the information on display about him, it occurred to me that he might have been around the same age as my grandfather.
 
Was there any chance Grandpa Les knew Louis personally? I know Grandpa liked his books.
 
Anytime I’m curious about something related to our family’s history, the first call I make is to my sister-in-law, Joey. I posed my question to her, immediately piquing her interest, too. She remembered Mom telling her that Grandpa Les was born in Wisconsin, but somewhere along the line he moved to Jamestown, well before my mother was born.
 
If his move wasn’t until after 1923, the year the sign in the writer’s shack said Louis and his family moved away from Jamestown, then I probably had a disappointing answer to my musings.
 
But Joey loves a mystery, so she got digging. The girl is a wizard when it comes to genealogy. It didn’t take her long to locate census records from that time period.
 
Now we were getting somewhere. Grandpa was born on September 23, 1907, in Merrill, WI. Louis was born on March 22, 1908 in Jamestown, ND. Census records show Grandpa still living in Wisconsin with his family in 1910, but by 1920, the records indicate they’d moved to Jamestown.
 
Suddenly, it was at least possible that these two boys, only six months apart in age, may have played basketball together at Franklin School. Or maybe they shared a table at the Alfred Dickey Free Library, crafting poems or short stories together. We know Louis blossomed into a very successful and prolific author, but I also have a booklet from Grandpa’s high school days that include pieces he (Les) wrote. 

​The school and the library are both included as part of a walking tour which highlights locations important to Louis in his early years.

​Both men left this earth years ago, but their legacies live on. Louis’s legacy includes his many books, short stories, and poems, as well as numerous movies and TV shows based on his work. Grandpa’s legacy lives on and continues to expand through our family. 

​Call me sentimental, but I’m always struck when I consider the many ways we continue to follow in the steps of those who have gone before us.
 
I’ll never know if my Grandpa Les and Mr. Louis L’Amour played basketball together at Franklin School, but I know I played some ball there. Did the two of them both write in the library? Yes, I suspect they might have, but maybe not at the same time. I know I spent many hours there, researching papers throughout my high school years. Even now, copies of the novels I’ve written sit on the shelves in the Alfred Dickey Library. There is a whole section in the library dedicated to Louis.

​During my visit to the writing shack, it felt surreal to place my fingers on an old typewriter Louis might have used to craft his best-selling stories. As I sat at that desk, my daughter-in-law juggled her phone in one hand, snapping pictures of me as I “played” at what it might have felt like to be an author back in Louis’s day, while she also held my five-month-old grandson in her arms.

I can still picture Grandpa’s face the first time he held my first born. Now it’s my son’s baby visiting an exhibit that honors the work and life of the man I suspect was the baby’s great great grandfather’s favorite author.
 
Were Les and Louis ever friends? I’ll never know. But Jamestown is a small town, and I suspect their paths crossed. Maybe they even helped each other celebrate a birthday or two. It’s a fun thought, regardless.
 
Happy heavenly birthday, Grandpa. I miss you. Thank you for passing on your love of books to me. And thank you, Louis, for sharing your talent with the world. You both left your marks on this earth.
 
Keep watching for those connections,  Kim
​

A wave of melancholy washed over me, despite the beautiful summer evening, as I relaxed on the dock with my nearly grown girls on the eve of my fifty-second birthday. I hated the idea of celebrating my birthday without Mom. Many “firsts” following the death of a loved one create peaks in the ebb and flow of our grief. This one felt especially poignant. There would be no “Happy Birthday” wishes from her the following day. What would my birthday feel like without her?

Unwilling to allow the all-to-familiar blues to take hold, I meandered off the dock, leaving my girls to their fishing. I’d let writing distract me. As a new author, I was blogging weekly to improve my skills and attract new readers. Months earlier, I’d scheduled out my blog concepts, deciding the prompt for my birthday week would be “Gift of Night Waves,” the title to a pivotal chapter in my first novel. In the book, my protagonist stumbles upon a priceless gift as ocean waves lap at her feet.

Standing on the shale shores of a murky reservoir in the middle of the country might not yield the same level of inspiration, but birds were twittering their night song, and a soft breeze caressed my face, smelling of fresh-cut grass with an undercurrent of fish. I needed to open my mind to ideas for a post to match my blog title.

Stepping carefully on the shifting shale, I scanned the shoreline. Tiny bubbles popped to the surface mere inches from my toes, and the darting shadows of minnows hinted at a hidden world below. Something bobbed nearby. I paused, bending over to investigate.

At first, I thought it was a flat piece of driftwood, but the shape wasn’t quite right. Curious, I picked it up. As I turned the item over, my mind flashed back to another July evening, three years earlier.
​

​We’d just returned from our maiden voyage in new kayaks. I wasn’t yet accustomed to getting in and out of the torpedo-shaped craft, and capsizing was a legitimate concern. Two yards from shore, I plunged one flip-flop-clad foot into the water to avoid scraping my new boat along the sharp shale bottom. Slimy muck enveloped my foot and encircled my ankle. I clumsily swung my other foot over and out, placing it more carefully on the slick surface below, intent on keeping my shorts dry.

I stepped toward shore; my left foot rendered bare as I pulled it from the sucking sludge, my shoe still buried. Unconcerned, I safely stowed my kayak, then turned back to retrieve my sandal, hopeful I’d be able to wash the clinging mud off my favorite shoes.

Returning to the exact spot, or so I thought, I probed first with my toes, then with my fingers, refusing to consider what else might be trapped in the quagmire below. My actions did little more than cloud the water with sediment, rendering my eyes useless in the search.

A flip-flop couldn’t just disappear. It had to be there. But where? As the sun dipped below the horizon, I admitted to temporary defeat. Waiting until morning would allow the disturbed lake bottom to settle. Hopefully the shoe would be revealed in the bright light of day.

The following morning, clear water and sparkling sun revealed nothing. Had my buoyant little shoe floated away on the waves? I refused to believe it.

Searching for my lost shoe became a family affair, but not even the twenty-dollar reward offered to the kids would be enough to discover my shoe’s hidey-hole. Mom would shake her head over the ridiculousness of my silly reward, finding my obsession over finding my cheap, missing shoe absurd.

Too soon, autumn chased summer away. While winterizing the cabin, I considered tossing my single remaining flip-flop. But I refused to give up on my quest.

Eventually, the lone sandal fell to the bottom of the shoe basket full of castoffs. Someone would occasionally joke about searching our bay for my missing shoe when they needed spending money, but there was likely nothing left to find.

 “Mom, what’s that?”

My mind ripped back to the present. The aqua, pink and white striped straps and the cork-like bottom of the dripping shoe in my hand matched my now infamous missing flip-flop. There was only one logical explanation.

“Did you two put this in here?” I accused, rounding on my daughters, cold water trickling down my arm as I held my discovery high in the air. I could read the confusion on their faces. If they were trying to trick me by planting my one remaining flip-flop down here, they were doing a masterful job of masking their scheme. Unable to accept that I might be holding the missing flip-flop, my mind jumped instead to my husband. Or our son. Who was trying to trick me?

Spinning, I half-ran, half-slipped up the shale embankment toward our cabin with my find. The quickest way to prove my theory was to confirm the sandal I’d kept was no longer in the basket. Dropping my muck-covered discovery on the patio, I hurried inside.

I tossed the collection of shoes onto the kitchen floor in my haste to disprove what I was starting to consider, …and there it was…waiting patiently for me at the wicker bottom of the basket.

​No one had tried to trick me by stashing a flip-flop along the shoreline.
​

​I headed back to the patio with the clean shoe, struggling to comprehend the likelihood of a ten-dollar sandal staying in one piece for three years, stuck deep in the mud of a bay that freezes hard every winter, where waves pound and water levels fluctuate. Yanking out a length of garden hose, I rinsed the clinging mud from my discovery. A metal grommet bore heavy corrosion, but beyond that, the shoe still looked nearly identical to its mate.

When I skipped back down to the water’s edge with my reunited shoes, the girls' dubious expressions revealed little elation over my find. The possibility of the twenty-dollar reward had evaporated.

​Pondering what had just transpired, I reclaimed my spot on the dock and felt a sense of contentment flow through me. The night’s waves had delivered unapparelled inspiration for my blog post, although capturing the scope of the experience felt daunting. Logic defied the sequence of the evening’s events (the shoe surviving harsh elements for so long, my being in the exact right place, at the perfect time, before my miraculously freed flip-flop could float away.)

My eyes traveled over the clouds dotting the horizon above the surface of our lake, and I accepted that logic didn’t belong in this story. I believe the flip-flop was symbolic, a sign sent from my mom, giving me the most precious of gifts for my birthday: a reminder to never give up, despite how daunting things may feel, and never to forget that she’s still watching over me, celebrating life.  

It's been three years since I found my missing flip-flop. I decided to keep the reunited pair in a shadow box in my home office as a constant reminder that mystery and inspiration always surround us. And Mom is still cheering me on!

Allow yourself to be amazed by the gift of the unexplainable,     Kim

As I sit down to write on this sunny Sunday morning, I’m again convinced that springtime is the ultimate reminder of the beauty in this world. I’d planned to get back to working on my latest novel, but the breathtaking scene outside my front window demands something different.

Spring flowers are bursting forth with wild abandon, untouched and unaided by human hands. We’ve survived a long, dark winter; a stretch of time shadowed by more than dreary weather. I’m enjoying the glorious riot of pink on the tree outside. Yes, I’m a “pink girl.” I grew up wanting to live in a pink house. It doesn’t get much more dedicated to a color than that!
​

We’ve lived in our house for twenty-eight years (give or take). We had no children when we moved in, but there were bedrooms to fill and a school nearby. Within the first year of living here, we had a new puppy and a baby on the way. That “baby” is now twenty-seven and living next door with his wife in their own house.

But we didn’t stop at one. When our son turned three, our first daughter arrived, followed by another little girl to round out our family of five.

The blooming of the pink crabapple tree always brings back special memories. Ever since the kids arrived, I’ve earned groans every spring when I insist we stand underneath the glorious branches laden with millions of pink blossoms for pictures. Depending on schedules and life stages, the various photos include poses with one, two, or all three of the kids. 
​

There are also special snapshots that include extended family.
​

I’m so thankful they all humor me with these annual photo sessions. When I look back through boxes of old pictures plus all the ones on my phone and in the computer, I sometimes wonder what I’ll ever do with so many pictures taken around one blossoming tree.

Should I delete some of the photographs? After all, most are hardly portrait quality masterpieces! There are shots with eyes closed against a glaring sun, heads turned at distractions, and a few inevitable squabbles as we crowded together. I bet that if I gathered one hundred of my pink tree pictures (it wouldn’t be hard, there are so many), most are perhaps “flawed” if I look at them with a critical eye.
​

But I won’t delete any of them. After all, they are snippets of what actual life is like. The photos are a grouping of everyday moments. Moments that, while we were living them, seemed commonplace, and making time to take the pictures almost felt like a burden even. After all, the blossoms only last for a few days, and if a storm rolls through, they’ll be gone in a matter of hours. I never wanted to miss taking pictures in front of the tree when it was in its annual state of glory.

​

The tree has a reliable cycle. Quiet and sleepy through the long winters, followed by a slow awakening. If you think to check, you’ll see tiny, tight buds forming, wine-colored and barely noticeable. You can never be sure exactly when they’ll burst open, taking on an almost fluffy appearance of beautiful color. The intense pink takes my breath away.

Right now, as I sit here appreciating the tree’s beauty, a solitary blossom dances slowly to the ground, caught on a puff of air, before landing softly on the bright green grass below. It’s a poignant reminder to enjoy this glorious sight now, before it’s too late.
​

It won’t be long before the petals fade. They’ll litter the grass and driveway below like huge snowflakes, but the warmed air finally makes snow improbable. The spring breeze will quickly carry them away, or the lawnmower will shred them as summer approaches.

But my pink tree will keep producing even after its blooms fade. Dark green leaves will remain, along with a heavy crop of tiny little apples. Eventually, there will be a noticeable increase in the sporadic thumps against our bay window after twittering birds partake of the fermenting fruit. Poor little things!

Eventually, the fruit will fall to the ground, messier than the petals of early spring. Daily sweeping of the driveway won’t be enough to prevent the staining of the concrete. Vehicle tires will pulverize the tree’s bounty. The toddlers that posed under that very tree with me through the years, their little hands thrown up over their eyes to block the shining son, now drive cars that will run over the tiny apples.

Where have the years gone?
​

Eventually, the heat of summer will fade to the crisp, cool nights of autumn. More apples will fall, frustrating my husband with the mess. But the only way that tree is leaving here is when it (or me) dies a natural death.

The weight of its many branches threatened it last year, so I looked away while the hubby trimmed away some excess. The weight was causing the trunk to split, making the pruning necessary to prolong the life of my tree.

With the low-hanging branches gone, our photo session last night required a slightly different angle.
It isn’t lost on me that I’m never alone in the annual photography sessions under the pink tree. This alone is a testament to how blessed my life has been while we’ve lived in this house. It’s just the two of us living here now, but thankfully the kids still come and go. This is still their “home”, and I hope it always will be. If not this physical place, I hope that wherever we call home will be special to the three of them as well.
​

I’m also learning to appreciate the beauty in other areas of the country where one of our kids is pursuing dreams of her own.

There may come a time where schedules don’t align during the brief annual window when my tree boasts its riot of color. I’ve come to understand that a selfie taken under my tree will be sufficient, too. Like the pink tree, everything lives through different seasons. Important people fill some of our days. But other times, we enjoy things on our own, exploring our own needs, and discovering new things that give us joy.

​

Many things in nature remind us of the cycles of life. There will be slow, sleepy days where not much seems to happen, times for rest and renewal. Then suddenly, big bursts of joy hit us. Even when unexpected storms rage, causing upheaval and turmoil, destruction even, we remember the winds will eventually blow themselves out, followed by a contemplative quiet. The storms pass, and it all begins again.

It is the promise of yet another springtime that fuels our hopes.

Another petal drifted to the ground just now, reminding me of the long list of springtime activities I hope to accomplish today. But as it does every single year, my tree has gifted me with a pause, a chance to reflect on the breathtaking beauty of life. And even though this year’s blooms won’t last much longer, I’m learning that if I keep my eyes open, nature will find another amazing way to remind me of what’s important tomorrow.

Welcome to spring, my friends!  Kim