The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds. – Thomas Merton
My mind is a magpie collecting bits and pieces of shiny things from all corners of my world. They glitter and shine in the afternoon light, no matter that they are simply debris of broken glass or twisted metal from a car wreck. It twinkles and glows in my peripheral vision and I sweep it up and hold it dear. My mind is full of such flotsam and jetsam.
A year ago, I had the privilege of being published in Hippocampus Magazine’s Writing Life Column. The following is the editor’s note about my essay:
Editor’s Note: Connie Kinsey’s essay is ekphrastic. It’s a vivid description of a work of art, its meaning expanded through her imagining. The art is the painting La Panthère Noire des Buttes-Chaumont, (The Black Panther of Buttes-Chaumont) by artist Kinga Katanics. Parc des Buttes-Chaumont is a Paris park.
You can read the essay here.
I am very pleased to be a contributor to the Writing Life column in Hippocampus Magazine.
You can find my essay here. Now that I think about it, it’s a fitting piece for May’s Mental Health Awareness Month.
Dropping out of college and moving to Wisconsin to follow my family seemed like a splendid plan. I was attending university in West Virginia and floundering—oh if I’d only majored in English as my secret heart wanted, but no. I chose pre-med. I wasn’t just floundering; I was lost and drowning.
I grew up in California, Hawaii, and the southern part of the east coast. When I was 14, we moved to West Virginia, where there was regular snow and winter. I liked it. It was such a change to have 4-seasons.
My dad began his second career and transferred to Milwaukee. I had been a military brat, and home had never been a place–it was a group of people. My floundering became frantic when my folks left.
I moved.
I didn’t understand about Wisconsin winters. I thought winter was winter–a sort of uniform experience.
Oh my.
I moved in October. There was already snow on the ground. Deep snow. Cold snow. It was the winter of 78-79. Some of you may remember the gawdawful spectacle that Ma Nature put on. Snow to the rafters, subzero, blizzard after blizzard.
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W. Va. Fur and Root 