Today rolled in at nearly 60 degrees, once considered “unseasonably warm” for January. Sunshine did not come with the warmth; a gray pall filters over the stark landscape, and a steady rainfall started in mid-morning. The weather matches my mood.

I know I have fallen silent. Voices are being raised all across the internet, and I am at a loss as to how I can contribute anything different. How I could offer up something other than another scream of rage, gasp of disbelief, scoff of disgust, cries of the Savior’s name in vain, blurted out as prayers to please make this insanity stop.

I have nothing. I have no answers. I am enraged, disgusted, horrified, and terrified - aghast, repulsed, and so terribly, terribly tired of it all.

I remember, in 2020, thinking of a renaissance. I remember wondering how our lives and culture would change as a result of the pandemic, remember having an underlying level of hope.

Back then, I used the word “ridiculous” often, in response to scrambled policies, differing opinions, which, over time, became “beyond ridiculous.” And then, as time passed, I actually began to struggle with words for “beyond ridiculous.” What is beyond “surreal”? What is beyond “satirous”? What is beyond “inconceivable”?

When satire (a literary and artistic genre that uses humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices) becomes reality, what word is used to describe the “new normal”?

“Dystopian” describes a grim, dehumanizing, and fearful imagined society, often featuring oppressive societal control (corporate, bureaucratic, technological, or ideological), loss of individuality, and a protagonist who questions the system.

The problem is, we’re not imagining this. This is really happening.

Late October of last year, I headed out in my new-to-me Subaru on my first vacation in five years. Coincidentally, it was the same day as the No Kings protests and the same day as Bridge Day. I remembered it was No Kings Day, and put a sign in my car window for my trek down Route 19 to I-64, and on my way.

I forgot it was Bridge Day - until I saw the detour recommendations as I took the Route 19 exit from I-79. I was planning my re-route in my mind: take 19 south through Summersville, then cut east on the backroads prior to reaching the New River Gorge Bridge, over through Richwood and Marlinton into Virginia.

The intersection at 79-19 is always a little congested. There’s a park-and-ride there, and space for truckers to pull over. I was not surprised to see a state police presence — detour and Bridge Day and all. But I was not expecting to see men in black tactical gear, ICE agents standing with hands on hips and guns in the background while WVSP directed traffic.

ICE agents in central West Virginia. Frankly, I never imagined I would encounter them. I mean, this is nowhere. My heart began to race, and I thought of the No Kings sign in my window. Would that be enough cause to pull me and my little blind dog over for questioning?

I was scared, and I was angry. I saw no need for their presence. Central West Virginia? Seriously? But our governor enrolled us in the 287(g) Program, an ICE program allowing trained state and local law enforcement (including State Police and National Guard) to perform immigration enforcement duties.

I later learned there were 18 arrests that day at that location.

I watched the murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota once. Once was enough. Enough to remind me of that day last October when I found myself in the midst of an ongoing ICE operation.

What if it hadn’t been Kings Day? What if the protestors hadn’t been in Charleston and along Main Streets, WV/USA that day? What if they had been at the junction of 79 and 19 protesting the ICE operation? There would have been cars, and confusion, and chaos perhaps, just as there was in Minnesota.

A witness named Caitlin Callenson, who recorded a video of the incident, told reporters that agents gave Good conflicting orders: One agent told her to drive away while another told her to get out of her SUV, Callenson said.

She had just dropped off her 6-year-old son at school. Her dog was in the car with her, just as mine had been in the car with me.

I sometimes wonder if it will be our normal, everyday routines that will get us all killed in this dystopian society. Things like taking your kid to school or heading out on a vacation. We continue running on our hamster wheels chasing the American Dream, which is no longer a dream, in a country that is no longer American.

ICE murdered a mother, a poet, a Christian, in the street. They withheld medical treatment, and they made excuses. They blame her for it, and they kick and scatter her memorials.

What words can I offer for comfort? What words can make this stop? What words would make our elected officials uphold their oaths to The Constitution? What words can I write to end this dystopian national nightmare?

What words would enlighten those who refuse to see? Bring action to right these ongoing wrongs?

There are no words.

No words.

Winter is coming. I felt the warm breezes shift to cold winds on a recent vacation in the highlands of Virginia, enjoying the warm mineral baths and spas for a self-care experience with my sister. And though my drive there treated me to the spectacular splendor of autumn in the Appalachian Mountains, the seasons had advanced to the point that, between our warm and cozy experiences, we had to deal with biting winter winds.

When I returned a week later to the valley at home, the winter winds had reached there as well. Leaves had fallen and left the hills stark with white tree trunks, and the mornings that had been foggy and damp before I left are now crisp with frost. My windchimes are overworked, and the winds whistle through crevices and corners.

‘Tis the season to prepare for hibernation.

I’m old enough now that I have spent half my working career working from home, and the other half working out and about. Now home-based again, when seasons turn cold, I am always grateful that I don’t have to get up and defrost my car, shovel snow, or venture out in the brisk early mornings.

I rarely venture out. This time of year, facing the holidays and hibernation, I try to imagine how many others out there are like me, who head to town once a month, perhaps twice a month, or not for months on end. Happy hermits stocking the wood stove, or baking bread, or stirring a soup pot.

“Homebodies” is a term I once saw used to describe those who are happiest at home and thus stay there. “Introverts” is another common term; some might even use the word “pariah” to refer to those who have been shunned into hermitage. Others use the word “homebound” for those who would go out if they could.

I try to imagine the hermits in the area, the ones for whom “running errands” counts as a social outing, who, by mere need to resupply, emerge from their seclusion. Remote workers, homesteaders, senior citizens, homeschoolers, happy hermits in their version of a hobbit home.

I no longer “hover” or “doomscroll” on social media like I once did. I check it once or twice a day and move on. But there is where I see other hermits check in, sharing current projects or daily deeds or dinners. Somehow, there’s a connection, across hills and hollers, even amongst strangers who are happily piddle-farting around their home space, only checking on the world at will.

I don’t think I could carry the daily social weights of the world right now. Don’t know if I can remain sane as we have progressed from beyond ridiculous, beyond surreal, into this dystopian insanity we’re calling civilization lately. Don’t know if I could, on an ongoing daily basis, refrain from occasionally calling people idiots and hypocrites or just plain ignorant.

Vapid is a good word too - it means “offering nothing that is stimulating or challenging.”

No, it’s best I just stay at home. It’s cozy here, and I have all my things.

Happy hibernation. I’m all set.

Are you a hermit, too? Happiest at home? How often do you socialize? Is there a club for us that never meets? Let me know.

My favorite time of year has come. Those weeks when summer transitions to fall. The hills are no longer green upon green upon green, and now have yellow and rust spots here and there and a few freckles of orange. Tractors are circling the hayfields, making hay while the sun shines, and the dog days of summer (what I c…

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After two years of happily working from home, I return tomorrow to an in-person job. I prefer change to be gradual, but in my life, just as in our country, recent changes have come swiftly and unexpectedly. For me, they are intertwined. First, with one of my main clients, West Virginia labor laws required them to transiti…

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The sun shines today for the second day in a row, a wonderful treat after weeks of harsh winter weather. Temperatures around 40 degrees don’t feel as cold as they should once you’ve spent days too far below freezing. The days have started growing longer as well, a sign that we have survived the darkest days of winter.…

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I spent a significant portion of last year writing on external issues. After a 20-year hiatus from “news” writing, I thought I might go there again. I lasted a week as a newspaper “editor” (a position which turned out to include the duties of editor, reporter, and head of circ…

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On Wednesday of this week, I was lamenting another overcast day, one of several consecutive gray days. Already, my solar lanterns had lost too much energy to light up the nights as they did this past summer, but the days and nights were not yet cold, despite the breezes that had been…

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Many moons ago, I spent my summer teaching job skills to women about to be weaned off government assistance. The class covered basics like computer skills, resume creation, interviewing skills, etc. During our preparation for interviews, to find ways to make themselves stand out …

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I can barely process the immensity of it—the destruction from Hurricane Helene. While much focus is on the hardest-hit areas of western North Carolina, I try to focus my thoughts and prayers on those within our own state who have lost everything, who are without power, and who have been devastated or do…

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Most country folk are painfully aware that regular travel along these two-lane roads regularly is hard on a vehicle. Twists and turns wear tread off the tires; deer and other wildlife can do some serious damage; wet roads, snow, and ice…

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My spring cleaning process is often a frenzied tackle of multiple projects, undertaken amid high hopes and lofty goals for the summer season. My fall cleaning process is more of a “wrapping up,” a more systematic process of finishing what I started and/or re-sh…

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By Lisa Hayes-Minney

Even though I most often work West Coast hours (pretty much the same as closing bartender shifts I worked in my younger days), I try to arise in the mornings early enough to get some porch-sittin’ time in before the heat of the day comes on. With this schedule, I miss the song of the early birds…

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By Lisa Hayes-Minney

My 90-year-old mother doesn’t understand.

“I thought you weren’t going to do this,” she said.

“I wasn’t,” I reply.

“So, why?”

“Somebody has to.”

“But, I don’t understand why it has to be you.”

<sigh> “Mother, I truly don’t quite understand that either.”

This is not the first time we’ve had this sort of conversation.

This latest thing I’ve …

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According to Britannica (encyclopedia), “the Renaissance was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages.”

(Fervent, in short, means “intense feeling,” by the way, and note how they put “rebirth” in quotation marks.)

Meanwhile, an enlightened being is liberated…

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Murdock: Lieutenant... How would you handle this?
Lieutenant: We could try ignoring it, sir.
Murdock: I see... Pretend nothing has happened and hope everything's all right in the morning?
Lieutenant: Just a thought, sir.

— Airplane II: The Sequel

I’m not sure what the deal was with May this year. Without even looking, I’m c…

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When the creek rises, the first place along our road to disappear under water is at the end of our driveway. Then, we’re on our own until the water recedes. The road closed, for us, is “high water,” not “flooding.” Flooding, for us, starts once the mailboxes disappear. Anything much higher than that, and …

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Around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, about the time the weather watch beeped on my cell phone, the power went out. I had not been awake long, having tutored online until 2 a.m. the night before, and I never got to open the notification. I had no idea we were under a tornado warning until Frank hooked up the generator around 6…

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One lone peeper frog in the dark night,
One lone peeper, beneath a quiet, starry sky.
One lone peeper, I heard him, for sure!
Six solemn peeps... Then nothing more.

February 21, 2014

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The peepers started about two weeks ago, timid and lonely chirps at dusk — before the recent snowsto…

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More than one person (actually four people) has recently advised me to “stop hiding.” Yes, I have withdrawn lately. Yes, I have gone weeks without leaving the farm. Yes, I have been cocooned, contemplative, and reflective. However, because it’s winter, last year was stressful (last four years really), and I now work from h…

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On an early-dark winter’s evening, nearly twenty years ago, a group of local writers gathered in the picture-perfect living room of the founding member of the group, listening to her read a short story she was preparing to submit to the annual WV Writers Inc. writing contest.

I was the newbie of the group, having reached my thirties before ever knowing …

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