Scenes from Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina: quiet glories

What a glorious part of the country Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina, proved to be. And what enormously generous hosts I had in my friends Susan Tekulve and Rick Mulkey. We walked, we talked, we taught, we ate, we found flowers, fresh and unsnowy. In the process, I met incredible students and community members, read from Going Over, Flow, and Nest. Flight. Sky., and shared some thoughts about the writing life.

And then there was this: I saw old friends. The glorious Carolyn Wilson Baughman, of whom you last heard when I was in Asheville, NC, for her sister, Katherine's, wedding. The incredible Lois Carlisle, of whom I spoke after returning from the National YoungArts program in Miami. And Lisa Hammond (and her friend Joyce)—Lisa being the mom of another terrific National YoungArts scholar, Laura Rashley, and a poet herself.

So much good feeling. So many indelible memories. An early spring.

Thank you, Susan, Rick, Converse College, friends and community.

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a final Sunday with the Wilsons

St. John's Presbyterian Church celebrated Reverend Victor Wilson's twenty years with us today—and said goodbye to a family it is impossible not to love as Victor gave his final sermon.  Morning and evening were Victor's themes.  The responsibility we all have to carry memory forward, not as a burden, but as a gift.  The Wilsons will live among mountains now, birds, open air, artists, dulcimer songs.  They will visit with their beautiful girls, walk Carolyn's children to school, bless Katherine's upcoming wedding to Sean.   

Will you grow old with me? Victor asked Jane, his fabulous red-headed wife, at his sermon's close. 

And I thought to myself that that is perhaps the most romantic question a man can ask a wife.

Health and happiness, Victor and Jane.

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