I’ve been trying out a new ritual where I track my favorite quotes in a paper journal that I’ve read each month. Then I’ll throw up a little bloggy blog to share them. This is technically part two of March because I didn’t get it together in January and February (A Memoir).

This practice allows me to record what I’ve read, see my favorite words from others curated together, and rejoice in some sort of progress of thoughts in a world that feels like constant chaos beyond my control. Orange Stalin, the woes of late capitalism, the doldrums of The Great Robot, and non-stop patriarchal fuckery of ignoring climate change sets my teeth on edge. So once again I turn to books and art.

My own writing continues to feel like a thick swamp of quick sand that’s clear as lamp black paint. Viva mixed metaphors! After writing all day at the jobby job, there is nothing left for The Creative Writer Hobby Job and I have little to say at this stage in my life. I know plenty of prolific folks who can write for themselves after a day of writing for the paycheck, and I’m okay with not being that person right now. Honestly, I’m entirely grateful for how I get to spend my days and I feel too old and jaded to give a fuck otherwise. I contain multitudes and thus things may change for me one day.

I did write a poem for a local poetry contest that I quite love. There were rules on how many characters each line could contain and there is a limit on length. The perfect prompt for me. I circled the idea for this poem for three months and finally clicked submit on Sunday. They’ve rejected me before, but I always have fun writing poems. I am beyond chuffed I blended the teachings of Emily Dickinson, Rumi, Hunter S. Thompson, and my favorite Canadian duo Mama’s Broke into my poem.

If you know me and things I used to write about, you’ll recall how much I loved to teach people about remixing creative works by using cover songs as an entry point. Kids, circle round while Aunty Alyson tells you about a time before The TechBro Libertarian Robot controlled the interwebz. Kidding! I won’t rehash that glorious moment of the interwebz I now grieve. There was a time I loved when people got various copyright permissions because they understood songs that bands cover. Mama’s Broke does an amazing version of Send Me The Pillow You Dream On with the two of them under the smoke season skies. Worth a listen. I know this song via Dolly Parton, and their version is pure magic.

March 2026 Book Quotes

16] The Best Short Stories of 2025

Read one story each day.  My favorite story was “The Arrow” by Gina Cheng. 

When the pink cross appears, it feel like confirmation of what you’ve know all along–that God, if he exists, does not give a shit. 

17] Textile Creating Through Nature by Jeannette Appleton

The heart of man is very like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides, and it has its depths, it has its pearls too. quoting Vinnie VanGogh

18] Enough: Climbing Toward A True Self on Mount Everest by Melissa Arnot Reid

I found the climbing to be remarkable like the slopes of Rainier, just bigger and harder in the very thin air of the high altitudes. Everest’s base camp was three thousand feet higher than the summit of Rainier; its summit was two Rainiers stacked on top of each other. The difference was palpable. Steeps felt steeper, and the slight change in weather would feel far more extreme than the forecast indicated. A fifteen-mile-per hour gust of wind could feel like nothing more than a stiff breeze on the flanks of Rainier, but on Everest, with temperatures so close to freezing, the slight wind would freeze your face and fingers. 

The Tibetans believe that a goddess lives inside every mountain.

19] Liars by Sarah Manguso

I was a layer cake of abandonment and hurt and fury, iced with a smile.

Calling a woman crazy is a man’s last resort when he fails to control her.

20] The Glorians: Visitations From The Holy Ordinary by Terry Tempest Williams

We are afraid. But under the stars, I am not afraid or isolated. The word cosmos means universe and flower. One is too vast to hold; the other I can hold in hand, its thin stem a thread between my fingers. But what if I am wrong, and the universe holds me?

As above, so below; as within, so without; as the universe, so the soul. …the books I am writing are house I that I build for myself 

You could say that Barry was the Micheal Jordan of environmental writing. (Quick aside, I’m not a fan of basketball, so I would say he was the Eddie Mercykx of environmental writing)

Barry taught me early that the color of the river is light. (2nd aside, Swoon, Barry, I love you)

In autumn, the red oak burns with flaming leaves until November brings forth a copper cast. I love the glow the leaves create on my desk. and when I work late at night—sometimes, depending on the moon-the red oak becomes a radiance visible in the dark. In winter, the Divinity Tree’s architecture captures my attention, the deep vertical grooves of its trunk, how its branches stoically any te weight of snow. I appreciate its black silhouette against the New England gray —but when blue sky breaks through and the light shifts so does my focus as shadows of clouds cross between the oak and me.

I howl like a coyote. 

To be robustly engaged and risk a life of certainty for a life of purpose is what it takes to do our work together in a spirited community-boldly—on behalf of the unseen, the lowly, and the magnificent species; the rooted, the spored, the scaled, finned, furred, and winged creatures so vulnerable among us—this is our wild promise.

We can be a vessel that things can move through.

Higher education is the high wire act in an academic circus of lion tamers, acrobats, trapeze artists, and ringmasters. 

The practice of writing on paper is like breathing, I can fill a journal in a week. A pencil is my preference, as the lead point creates a precision of script and if you make a mistake, it is easily corrected. I appreciate a pencil’s ephemeral nature. The feel of a fountain pen gracefully moving ink across the page of a letter is an extravagance; how the mind stays with the length of an idea or wanders from it, swept away in a stream of consciousness, is all deeply familiar to me. And my own daily discipline of writing feels more akin to ritual than habit. 

We can adapt and reimagine the climate crisis to be a time of transformation where we can be participate in change, not victims of it. We can choose to live differently together. We can ask the water where it wants to go and begin our revision process by listening. 

This is how will be allowed to stay mindful of the faces and phases of climate collapse, now visications of the Holy Ordinary like drought, floods and fires as their accelerated presences demand our attention. They deserve our partnership if we are to survive alongside them wherever we call home.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, but if we know what to do with it. quoting Emerson

Au Revoir, March, the month of birthdays. The month where I’m the girl with the most cake. I fake it so hard I’m beyond fake. Here’s my favorite moment on Substack, a platform I don’t quite get, but I love what artists do there.