Greetings from Alison Wiley here in Portland, Oregon. I'm a writer/doer/thinker who lives happily by putting people, nature and God ahead of accumulating more stuff. Read more →
Barbara Kutasz penned this post about the unlikely, vibrant venue in which Christmas became real to her this year. Barbara is a friend and fellow member at Lincoln Street Church here in Portland, Oregon. (If you thought us Portlanders are too liberal to embrace church, please think again: some of us progressive folks love God [...]
Tags: Advent·Barbara Kutasz·Cafe-Au-Play·Common Cup Shelter·libraries·Multnomah County·Nick Fish·Portland
As a child, I confess I found Christmas gifts wildly exciting. (Maybe I was a pre-diamond-cut version of myself?) As an adult, though, human beings are my steady focus of excitement. Our Christmas Eve last night was
It’s early Tuesday morning, Christmas is Sunday, and I have Christmas gifts to buy. “What a last-minute shopper!” my carpool partner Cory grinned last night on the ride home. “This is on time,” I returned indignantly.
Tags: artist·big box·Christmas·Christmas gifts·local·Mirador·olden days·Saturday Market·shopping·Target
As Diamond-Cut Life readers know, I love not just sociability, but community, i.e. interwoveness, especially between folks of varying ages and walks in life. So! Thor’s and my 8th annual Christmas party is Sunday December 4th, from 2-7 p.m. Children are welcome; I’m pretty crazy about them. Jeremiah, 9, exclaimed the other day, “Wow, you’re [...]
Tags: Christmas party·Hood to Coast·Nia·running·Sue Staehli·UnGame
Update on May 7, 2013: Speaking of free, I’m giving away a free copy of my novel, Revelle. 21 Amazon reviews give it an average 4.2 stars. You enter the drawing by subscribing to this blog (to your right). You’ll receive my one weekly post in your email inbox (easy to unsubscribe with a click [...]
Tags: community·friends·loss·relationshipe
This is a guest post from my friend Christina, she of joy-riding fame. What makes a neighborhood delightful, a place we want to be, that urban planners’ favorite word: “livable”? My own lovely neighborhood on the west flank of Mt. Tabor here in Portland, Oregon, has been grappling with a problem. The city has a [...]
Tags: bike lanes·livability·Mt Tabor·neighborhood·urban planners
What would you and I do if the law was changed to where gay people could be executed for being gay? Would we distance ourselves from gay people, many of whom are our neighbors, coworkers and extended family? Or would we peacefully march into the fray and identify ourselves as being gay (no matter what [...]
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The call came at 7:50 on Monday morning. My husband Thor quietly relayed it to me: Mom had died. My response was the opposite of quiet: I was hyper, distraught, frantic to get to her, to be in her physical presence for the last time. I drove the two of us at breakneck speed to [...]
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What is it you want to do with your one wild and precious life?* Do you have an answer to that question? Harry, a man in my general social circle, killed himself last Monday. Maybe he didn’t have an answer to that question. Or maybe,
Tags: Egypt·Mary Oliver·U.S.
Two years ago, on January 1st, 2009, my friend Colleen Kaleda and I spontaneously made a shared New Year’s resolution to tutor and befriend two African immigrant women (one apiece). We were clear we wanted to be of more service in our lives, and that we had enough time to do that. We shook hands [...]
Tags: African immigrants·David Chilstrom·New Years resolutions·saying grace·service
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