Today, I’m in the final push…to really lock-in what I know and what I don’t know about my historical characters. So, for the last 2 weeks, it’s been a headlong rush into titles that are found regionally in Cebu – which is fabulous, except that I live in Chicago. What can a fictionist in the diaspora do?
For me, the natural world is a place of healing & freedom. It is messy, ever changing, and holds so many spiritual lessons. I run to the woods when I’m sad…I hike through the woods when I’m excited to be alive. Recently, our Lola Mading (Grandmother Mading) crossed-over to the Other Side. She was 94 [...]
Chicago artist Sallie Wolf’s charming children’s book The Robin Makes a Laughing Sound (Charlesbridge, 2010) invites kids to get to know some of their noisiest neighbors – the birds!
We were in Japan for 3 weeks this summer which was a wondrous journey of extremes: from the neon, buzz and bullhorns, and manga-mania of Electric Town in Tokyo to the mist-covered hills, sacred herd of deer, 1,000-year-old cedar tree, and the shrines and temples of Nara. It’s taking a while to get back into [...]
The storm brought everyone outside: neighbors checking on each other, comparing notes, tsk-ing, and wondering at the downed trees, the debris-strewn street. I managed to sneak a post yesterday before ComEd shut everything down so they could address live wires and blown transformers. (Photos in yesterday’s post.) ABC News reported that there were 215,000 Chicagoans [...]
At around 4:20 p.m., we ran to our van. A storm was breaking and the crowns of the 50 – 100′ trees in our town began to dance. Branches broke off, leaves flew through the air, and rain drummed the van roof. Streetlights at major intersections had lost power. It takes us 10 minutes to [...]
I want to encourage anyone who reads this post to go outside for at least 9 minutes. Take a break. Touch some tree bark. Take your shoes off and wiggle your toes in the grass or the sand or even into some loamy soil. It’s been a full & sometimes hectic 2 weeks since my [...]
Have you ever noticed the way the Great Blue Heron stands tall when she hunts, head snaking, spindle-legs plunk silently? But when she spots the silver darting fish, she crouches low, a ball of feathers, an arrow focused on one intent —-> B R E A K F A S T ! ~ MGB 6/15/10
What if the land did not belong to us? And we could not own it? What if we belonged to the land? In my family, we have this idea, a Filipino tradition, a value and a feeling: utang na loob. It’s been translated as a “debt of gratitude”. It is profound, inescapable, and there is [...]
Tanim, tanim, tanim. Plant, plant, plant. When I woke up this morning, I was so excited to start the new day and finally plant the seedlings and seeds I’ve been gathering. Because my historical fiction is grounded in the sixteenth century Philippines, I’ve learned all this cool stuff about our traditional relationship to nature. Our [...]