On my first date with Chris, we met at a little restaurant in downtown Chicago. It was a sunny day […]
Author Archives
Monica Graff
After two decades of copyediting for scholarly publishers, I decided to put down my red pen and pick up a black one. Now I write essays, some of which have been published on various websites and in print anthologies.
Polebridge, MT: Baby, It’s Cold Outside!
No doubt about it. The weather outside is frightful. The National Weather Service is calling for a windchill of -52 […]
Polebridge, MT: Frost-n-Squash
The glass of water on my bedside table hasn’t frozen. Yet. But the evening mist now leaves frosty geometric patterns across […]
Polebridge, MT: The Grasshopper and the Godfather
Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment. —Don Corleone, The Godfather: Part III Here at the yurt there’s always a […]
Polebridge, MT: Sodbustin’
If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. —Thich Nhat Hanh In the two years that […]
Polebridge, MT: Moving Day
Here come the earth movers; They’re coming to take it away. Topsoil, spruce, stumps, and weeds; Oh how we’ve pined […]
Polebridge, MT: The Bare Necessities
Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities, Forget about your worries and your strife; I mean the bare […]
Ireland: Escape to the Emerald Isle
First of all, let me begin by pointing out a change in our blog’s subtitle. As you can see, it […]
Polebridge, MT: The Welcoming Committee
After four months in Italy, we’ve finally returned to the yurt. If our first trip out to the property is […]
Polebridge, MT: We’ve Moved! (For Now)
As you might have guessed, living in a yurt without running water in freezing temperatures is bearable for only so […]
Polebridge, MT: Pride Goeth Before the Fall
I’m glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. —Chris G. Fall is here. The tourists are gone, the […]
Polebridge, MT: Under the Dome Alone
“Oh no, don’t do that,” my mom said when I called to tell her that I’d be staying at the […]
Polebridge, MT: Butter-and-eggs
Flowers are the earth laughing. —Ralph Waldo Emerson As the undisputed “Crown of the Continent,” Glacier National Park is grand, […]
Polebridge, MT: Heat, DEET, and No Retreat
Like much of the U.S. right now, we are suffering from a brutal heat wave. The highs are twenty degrees […]
Polebridge, MT: That Which Doesn’t Kill Us …
Well, Readers, it’s been a while since I’ve posted about the topic I’m sure you’re all dying to know more […]
Polebridge, MT: Square Foot Gardening
In a state as vast, remote, and sparsely populated as Montana, square-foot gardening may seem absurd. I know it probably […]
Italy: The Amalfi Coast
The thing about the Amalfi Coast is that it’s vertical. Very vertical. But it’s nothing less than dazzling, which is why […]
Italy: La Dolce Vita in Tuscany
Once an eleventh-century village, or borgo, the origins of Castel Monastero Retreat & Spa have been lost in time, but in the […]
Polebridge, MT: Where Did Winter Go?
Unbelievably enough, it’s officially spring. As with most of the country, the “wild winter” of “clime and punishment” predicted by […]
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