How I came to write from Pele’s rainforest. — A few weeks back I was invited by Quy Ma to write an “About Me Article.” I don’t find it easy to write about myself, so I kept putting it off. When I finally nudged myself into starting, my first attempt turned into two days of cathartic writing. “BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.” I don’t think…

Yes, we had a haunted house — Holiday Season 1986 The long Thanksgiving weekend was our traditional time for setting up the Christmas tree and decorating the house. This took several trips to the attic spaces in our turn-of-the-century home to retrieve our artificial tree and boxes of decorations. Our boys were still quite small, 2 and 3 years old…

A quatern. The strangest place I’ve ever been. Weed lined roads, rolling past corners Where the goats chew and chickens flap, Shamans dancing, chanting, cursing, Tourists seeing only street signs. The strangest place I’ve ever been. Waterfalls rushing to the sea, sun above Sand clings to feet that climb up …

I am. — When I joined Medium in late 2020, I initially spent more time reading articles than writing them as my writing efforts were primarily geared toward my local writers' group. But this spring, I decided to set aside more writing time and expand my efforts here online. I have been reading…

Zealots — Another day is here, I try to write between the rising and the setting of the sun. Capturing my thoughts, a struggle, despite the way they roll around my mind. Eventually the motion makes its way- fingers tapping on the old HP. …

The Lark poetry competition submission — She is my heart's delight in every way, With innocent bright wondering lighted eyes, At dawn’s first gleam a promise for the day, With life unlimited as bright blue skies. One velvet petal at a time unfurls, From tiny bundle smelling of the dew, Face turned toward the sun the bud uncurls, Her placement in the garden’s…

Now I have an identity crisis. — Although I have always enjoyed writing, I didn’t have the time or opportunity to belong to a writers group until after I moved to Maui twelve years ago. I joined my second and current group here on Big Island in January of 2020, just before Covid disrupted our lives. We…

My typing morphs. — Plenty of titles but nowhere to go. My typing all morphs into “AARRGGHHH!” I SHRUG. I don’t know. But I do, and so do you. Facing the day all masks and puns aside, an unending sea of backtracking. Trying to climb up a muddy slide of stupidity. Ours or theirs? It…

Writers I follow U through Z — If you missed my first four articles, this is a continuation of the ABC Writers Lift Challenge. In a nutshell, you highlight other writers you are inspired to follow, listing one for every letter of the alphabet. The instructions are here: I’m Inspired by Other Writers, Part 1 Reaching out to the writing community.taressawatson.medium.com Today I’m adding part 5, authors with names from U through Z: