This site has taken many shapes and forms since its creation. It was originally a simple place to post my poetry & art--a sudden idea which sprang from a "Well Why Not?" attitude.

What has emerged is this: a tribute to the place, women, men I came from; the little boys & girls who grew up in Eastern Kentucky with a pocket full of dreams & a lifetime of love in each fingertip. The men & women who struggled, fought to survive with dignity intact, relied on faith, gut instinct, turned to God, kept on loving with a love so pure & unselfish. Their children, who are now grown up & struggling to find their place in this world.

I am a product of all the love I've experienced or been witness to in 26 years. I am a Southern girl who memorizes moments & feelings & tries to articulate them as best I can so that my history is well documented & my love catalogued. So that no one ever doubts exactly how they made me feel. I am a girl who is in love with living. In love with all the small seemingly insignificant moments that occur every day. That make this life chaotic / messy / moving / beautiful / sorrowful / ugly / extraordinary. I am a girl who lives for words / songs / soft hands on foreheads / conversations that are not spoken. I am moved by grit, by grime, by people who roll up their sleeves & dig into the mess, without worrying about the consequence. I believe we all have the ability to heal. Ourselves & others. I believe we have to choose healing. Everyday. In the smallest of ways. Even if it's sometimes just reminding ourselves to breathe.

There are pieces of everyone I love inside me. I collect stories & memories in every inch of my skin. I love hard. Because it's the only way I know how. Because that's the type of love I'm accustomed to. Because that's the type of love I've received.

I am Mamaw's doodle eggs. Dottie's strawberry freezer jam. Marcie's kindness. Billie's belief. Joan's cathead biscuits. Lisa's chuckle. Andrea's adventure. Tammy's downhome persona. Sam's wit. Beverley's slip stitch. Marilyn's childlike perspective. Scott's loyalty. I am Barbie's daughter. Junior's daughter. A product of such intense love, a girl who was placed in the most tender hands during the summer of '78. Someone so moved by the people she's met & cared for--they've each become an intricate fiber in the make-up of me.

I am one in an anthology of men and women, boys and girls, believers who were meant to be celebrated & remembered--a girl, plunked down in these hills, trying like hell to get this right--to take in all that I can possibly take in--and at the same time, give all that I can give, in whatever form that may be.