Category: 2026

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.

There are weeks when I feel as though I have been chasing small questions across the desert wind. The only one that seems to have answers for me is ChatGPT.

Why is my phone showing news from three months ago?
Can I edit a post from 2020 without rearranging time itself?
What exactly is the best flagpole for a front yard that faces the Zephyr winds of the high desert plains of northwestern Nevada?

Some weeks are not dramatic. They are simply full of details. Tax papers. Organizing materials in the NOK (Next-Of-Kin) box. Preparing documents for the notary. Meeting with the financial planner. Small projects that take organizational skills to conquer. Hours of meetings with ChatGPT to find out we did everything just right after all.

And yet.

Out the window at Winterpast, nothing appears concerned.

The apricot tree does not fret over formatting. Its branches stretch confidently toward the pale high-desert sky, holding the faint promise of spring in tight little buds. It has survived windstorms, pruning days with our trusted Tree Doctor, and summers hot enough to make even mustangs seek shade. It doesn’t panic as it waits.

Oliver and Wookie certainly do not panic.

At 5:00 a.m. sharp, they present themselves for freshly shredded cheese as though the entire economy of the world depends upon it. Breakfast is not optional. Dinner at 4:00 p.m. is not theoretical. Their confidence in the structure of life is astonishing. They never once ask whether the internet is working or if the archives are in chronological order but simply trust that breakfast will arrive.

There is something instructive about that.

This week I’ve been revisiting old posts from 2020. Touching words written in a different season of my life. With gentle editing and a sentence adjustment here or there, I’m discovering that I can polish the past, but I cannot relive it. The dates remain. The story stands. Time moves forward.

Winterpast understands this better than I do.

The decomposed granite paths stay put even when the dogs kick gravel into next Tuesday. The desert wind sweeps through whether I have solved my latest technology riddle or not. The sky over Northwestern Nevada shifts from silver morning to cobalt afternoon without waiting for my permission.

After six years of daily blogging, I sometimes think inspiration must arrive dressed in fireworks. But perhaps steadiness is the greater miracle. Showing up and writing anyway, while organizing years of memories so someone can begin at the beginning. Trusting that even quiet weeks are part of the whole.

All the while, Winterpast never panics. It endures winter, leans into spring, and endures the wind. And maybe that’s the lesson on this beautiful Friday morning.

Life doesn’t need to be extraordinary to be meaningful. The ordinary, wind-touched, cheese-at-dawn chapters are where faith is practiced quietly and love deepens without spectacle.

Winterpast is not in a hurry.

And maybe I don’t have to be either.

I’ll be back Monday. Have a great weekend.

Seventeen days after I became a widow, I stood by the pantry of a house I did not yet know, clutching one small dog and a ring of unfamiliar keys. Oliver trembled against my chest while I was doing my best not to. The world outside had shut its doors.

In April 2020 the world was terrorized by something we couldn’t even see. Covid19. The front porches of my new neighbors were empty. Church buildings were shuttered tight. Even the grocery store felt like a foreign country with arrows showing shoppers which way they needed to roll their carts. I knew only two people in town, and by the end of that summer, one of them would be gone.

Grief is accompanied by a peculiar fog following you everywhere. It sits across the table. It lies down beside you at night. And yet, somehow, in the middle of that intense fog, I managed to unlock the front door of Winterpast and step inside.

I didn’t feel brave, but rather intensely terrified. But, sometimes, bravery is simply showing up with a little dog and a ring of keys to enter a new chapter in life. Winterpast never wavered.

Winterpast sits on half an acre of intensely planted land, developed over twenty-two years by careful, loving hands. The soil, if you can coax desert ground into being called soil, had been amended and turned and planted and tended by gardeners who believed in beauty. Apricot trees stretch toward the Nevada sky. Crab apples prepare their spring confetti. Roses stand like sentinels along pathways. Even in my grief, I could see that this place had thrived with the devotion of Master Gardeners. We were simply the latest crew to arrive.

In those early weeks, I moved slowly. Empty one box. Fill one drawer. One day at a time. I began attending church in faith, even though I’d lost my way. I studied the Bible because I needed something solid beneath my feet. I started to write because words were the only way I could untangle the ache inside my chest. And so slowly I almost missed it, I began to heal. Winterpast helped.

In those first lonely months, I would walk the property with Oliver at my heels. We studied the empty beds. We counted new buds while listening to the wind. There’s something about tending living things that steadies a broken heart. You water. You prune. You wait. You trust that what looks dormant is not dead. Faith works the same way.

She’s more than a house. Solid and beautiful, she’s a quiet companion who doesn’t rush things. She doesn’t demand, but shelters. On windy high-desert afternoons when gusts rattle everything loose, she stands firm. When snow presses softly against the windows, she wraps us in warmth. When sunshine reflects gold across the branches of the Russian Olive, she opens her arms to light. She became my friend when I had none.

I didn’t know then what God was rebuilding inside me. I only knew how to take the next small step. Show up at church. Open the Bible. Write one paragraph. Plant one bulb. Wave at one neighbor. Simply begin again. Winterpast held me as I healed as the fog lifted.

Love returned in a form I didn’t expect. HHH walked through the doors that once felt so heavy to open. Laughter found its way back into the kitchen. The dogs multiplied and claimed their schedules and cheese rations. The pantry where I once stood trembling now holds groceries, jokes, and the hum of an ordinary Monday. Winterpast made room for all of it.

She is a protector and witness. She saw the tears. She hears our prayers. She has absorbed the whispered conversations at midnight and the grateful ones at dawn. Solid and steady, she makes sure HHH and I have a warm and snuggly place to call home. But more than that, she reminds me that beginnings can grow out of endings. Winterpast flourished long before we came and will flourish long after we’re gone. We’re simply caretakers in her long story. What a blessing it is to care for something that, in the past, cared for me.

Today, the desert is ready for spring, as the apricot tree stands quiet. Dawn’s early light glows warm against the Russian Olive. HHH is enjoying his coffee, the dogs are fed, and the keys hang easily on their hook.

The winter has passed. The rains are over and gone. The seedlings are sprouting on the table, and I am truly grateful to live in a place we call Winterpast.

Have a great day.

Due to an extreme crash, Grievinggardener.com will be offline for at least one week.

Please feel free to read the archives. I’m so sorry to disappoint.

Joy