Following the Scent: Summer 2008
January 1, 1970
A view from the Lake Winter stayed longer than my invitation stipulated. I kept hoping he’d leave but he insisted on staying until early May. Spring arrived, lovely lady that she is, bringing with her droves of gold and purple finches, nut hatches, and chickadees but she was late too, and in the interim those winged songsters devoured several hundred pounds of black oil thistle and Niger seed. It’s been a strange summer as well. The temperature moves from cool to hot and vice versa before I’ve decided what I should wear. And then there’s the rain. Lots of it. Deluges. Lake Superior’s water level is near normal now, after 6 years of drought and the wild flowers are thriving, sweeping in amethyst, orange, and ruby waves over our open spaces (not that we have many such spaces: mostly rocks and trees but waysides are luscious). Creative Endeavors This winter,I became a jet-setter because my husband has been working on the west coast for over a year and we decided to connect on weekends in places like the Sierra Nevada’s, Phoenix, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles. It beats moving. Bill and I have traveled to more than 90 places since meeting 14 years ago which inspired me to create a travel blog Road Writer http://berylsbissell@blogspot.com as a place to share what we’ve seen with others. Stop by for a visit and chat. I’ve also started another blog called Finding Time for God: one woman’s search for the divine http://findingtimeforgod.blogspot.com – my attempt to stay faithful to the journey I began some 50 years ago and to share what I’ve learned during that time. I shall begin adding links to assist other spiritual pilgrims. Good books, websites, and the like. My more creative writing goes can be found on Gather.com http://beryl.gather.com . I am working on my next book, which will be a sequel to The Scent of God and currently has two forms: one as fiction and one as memoir. I have not yet decided on the final form. If you have strong feelings one way or another, concerning the genre of this book (which concerns my daughter Francesca’s death), I’m open to input. And finally, my website http://berylsingletonbissell.com has a whole new look, thanks to some upgrades the Authors League has made to their templates. I took advantage of those changes to add many new photos to the site in response to the many readers who asked me why there were no photos in the memoir. There is no reason save that the publisher didn’t ask. Now, if only the Author's Guild updated enough to allow the posting of the actual newsletter complete with photos, I'd be really grateful. It looks wonderful. If you'd like to see it, send an email to: contact@berylsingletonbissell. May you experience peace and have a great rest of the summer. © Beryl Singleton Bissell 2008 The award-winning author of The Scent of God, a Book Sense notable for April 2006, was named a "Best of 2006 Minnesota Authors" by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The Scent of God www.berylsingletonbissell.com Road Writer Travel Blog www.berylsbissell.blogspot.com Gather Blogger www.beryl.gather.com Finding Time For God www.findingtimeforgod.blogspot.com