Janna Urschel

Puppies!#@%:)

Cute. Snuggly. Roly-poly balls of love. Sure… and royal pains in the ass. I recently made the retrospectively taking-leave-of-my-senses decision to enroll our family as a foster home for our fabulous local rescue, Laramie Animal Welfare Society. To our menagerie of 4 people, 2 dogs, 6 chickens, 2 rats, 1 horse, and 1 fish, weContinue reading “Puppies!#@%:)”

On Focus

This morning I couldn’t find my glasses, so I looked on things with my own eyes. My ears told me everything was as it always was: a community of birds, the fourth dimension, talking with, to, and across each other, loudening at the approach of the sun: “it comes! it comes! it comes!” A messianicContinue reading “On Focus”

Aviation

The birds know what they’re about: Aviation The birds know what they’re about: raucous coupling raucous dissent raucous hunger the terrible rapture of first-flight the apocalypse of three-dimensional space I am a poor novitiate: I sit, I watch, but seldom learn with more than my pen. tomorrow, maybe, I’ll open my throat or stretch aContinue reading “Aviation”

The Art of Doing Nothing

I have really been wrestling with this stage of parenthood, the age when they insist they don’t need or want my help and can do it all themselves (the fraught 9-12 preteen years!). I often feel frustrated and bereft and superfluous. I used to hold them close and share their adventures step for step, andContinue reading “The Art of Doing Nothing”

This is my depression: a conversation-starter

I’m just coming through a period of what I call “going underground.” It’s a phase of my depressions where I find the need to withdraw from contact and the frenetic pace of everyday life (including, apparently, blogging!). When I come back online, I find a deep appreciation for the relationships I temporarily put on pause.Continue reading “This is my depression: a conversation-starter”

Why write?

“Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what’s going on here. Then we can at least wail the right questionsContinue reading “Why write?”

A poem for the morning

In the bluing,
cognition drowses.
At this hour
how easy it is for there to be
just blue, and a ribbon
of gray, and black fractals of trees
spiring.

Inexorably, there will come to be
color.
And on those colors
a host of thoughts
crowding
and squawking
and rising noisily
from their nighttime folds.

This morning is half-hidden
from me by curtains,
sheer and blotting

Thank You, ChaCha

Our menagerie is growing. On Thursday, we got four active, healthy-looking chicks by mail. On Friday there were three. It is the girls’ first year of 4-H, and their leader had prepared them to expect that not all would arrive alive, and, of those who did, that not all would stay that way. Nevertheless. TheContinue reading “Thank You, ChaCha”

Confessions of a Thrift Hound

One of the virtues of decreased resources is increased resourcefulness. When I hit college, my finances got a little dire, so I started poking around the local thrift stores. Part of the appeal was not only the student-friendly price-tags, but the stylistic idiosyncrasy, the library of oddball castoffs. I never knew what I would find,Continue reading “Confessions of a Thrift Hound”

Write On!

Writing Workshops Join a small, supportive community of writers for 6-week virtual writing workshops! With classes capped at only 6 students, you’ll enjoy plenty of individual attention and feedback. Each workshop will feature 3 weeks of exercises and tips to help you get started and hone your writing, followed by 3 weeks of draft workshopping.Continue reading “Write On!”