There are people who journal.
There are people who post occasionally.
And then there are those of us who write because we must.
For me, writing isn’t a hobby or content creation. It is not a marketing strategy, though I’m learning about those things, too. Writing is life. It is breath. It is how I make sense of this wild and beautiful stretch of years I’ve been given.
Winterpast is more than a house on the high desert plains of Nevada. She’s a witness. As the wind rattles the fences, trapping leaves along the greenhouse, and the mustangs wander too close, these things all find their way into words before the day is done. If I don’t write them down, it would be as if they never happened, and I couldn’t bear the thought of that.
When I was widowed in 2020, the page became my steady companion. There were mornings as grief sat heavy at my desk, with Oliver snoring softly at my feet, that Winterpast was quiet in a way that felt permanent. And yet, when I wrote, something shifted. Pain didn’t vanish, but it became named and contained. Words gave structure to extreme sorrow.
Over time, the story changed. Healing tiptoed in. With remarriage, I began a second chapter I didn’t see coming. Through it all, the writing remained, recording a broken widow and a grateful wife. The weary days and the hopeful ones. The gardens planted in faith and the storms that came and went. Writing keeps me awake to my own life.
When HHH and I travel, whether it’s Yellowstone skies, a Panama sunrise, or simply driving the long way home along the Eastern Sierras to avoid a raging storm, I don’t just experience the moment. I am noticing it while tucking away phrases and listening for meaning in the ordinary. The private breakfast on a balcony during the transit through the Panama Canal or the near silence of snow in our own backyard. These aren’t just memories, but paragraphs waiting to be written. The smallest things matter, and each detail, when written, becomes sacred in its own way. Writing slows me down enough to see.
I have learned more in six years of daily blogging than I did in decades of casual reflection. I’ve learned that faith woven into ordinary life is the richest theme I know. That humor softens hard seasons and readers are drawn not to perfection, but to honesty. Perhaps most of all, I’ve learned that writing is how I participate in gratitude.
To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.
To write about that garden is to remember why.
Some days, the page feels full before I even begin. Other days it sits blank and expectant. But I show up anyway, because life keeps happening. If I am paying attention, there is always something to say.
Writing is how I mark the passing of seasons.
Writing is how I honor the people I care about.
Writing is how I trace the arc from loss to love.
Writing is how I remember that even in winter, something is stirring just beneath the surface.
Words have carried me through storms, across deserts, over mountain passes, and into second chances. Writing is not separate from my life. Writing IS life.
