-
To All The Pets I’ve Loved Before
I’ve grown up with pets for as long as I can remember. My Easterling family seemed to have an affinity for the feline and canine variety of pets and the Russell side, especially my Aunt Diana, whom we sadly lost about two years ago, loved dogs. The first dog I remember loving was Lucy Ann. She was a little mutt puppy I named after a character on a TV show that I believe was called The Littles. I was 4 or 5 years old at the time. I know she died soon after I got her, but I’m not sure how, but I sure loved that little dog and missed…
-
Finding Inspiration
A question writers (and other types of artists) often get is “Where do you find your inspiration?” I honestly get mine from everywhere. My family. My friends. My coworkers. My surroundings. My travels. My experiences. My fears. My doubts. My successes. You get the picture? As far as inspiration goes, everything you consume is material. Movies you watch, novels you read, music you hear, conversations you overhear, the human emotions and actions you witness. You can create a story for the situations you encounter. Why is the man screaming at the store clerk? Well, maybe his father just died, and he’s having trouble dealing with it. Why is the woman…
-
#BlackLivesMatter
My heart has been heavy for a while now. And my mind is still trying to come to terms with the fact that there is still systematic racism in America in 2020. It’s 20-freaking-20, not 1920, and it was just as wrong then as it is now. I just can’t fathom why anyone would think to judge someone based on the color of their skin. As a white, southern woman, I’ve grown up around racism. I went to an (almost) all-white high school. Our school district would occasionally have a student of Hispanic or Asian heritage, but I don’t recall any students who had black or African-American heritage during my…