The Journey
Welcome to The Journey, a space where Mary McKSchmidt shares her transition from business executive to advocate, photographer, poet, and storyteller. Here, she invites you to walk alongside her as she explores life in the Great Lakes region, its beauty and fragility, and the bonds that connect us all.
Because
At a time when grief lurks in the background like a cat waiting to pounce in moments of vulnerability; when the headlines tempt me to roll into a cocoon of isolation, a poet creates a cinepoem that slices through the darkness and reaches a pinhole of light...
Frog on a Log and a Promise
Why are there. so many songs about rainbows and what's on the other side? The curious song appeared mysteriously, a do-loop in the brain that would not disappear shortly after her death. It was not “Oh what a beautiful morning,” “Take me out to the ball...
Celebrating Mother
On Sunday, July 20, 2025, Jane McKinney—my mother, friend, teammate, co-author, chair chat buddy, and co-creator of “A Bench and a Tree”—passed peacefully, surrounded by her children in front of her beloved window. She was ninety-eight years old. Although no...
This Day
for Rubin Most days I am with her as she begins a departure that is inevitable, reasonable, heart-smashing. But this day I am with him. And while the horizon is swallowed by a disconcerting fog, the stillness of this moment in his presence soothes and...
Why I Write Poetry
In a life that’s zigzagged from newspapers to corporations to advocating for the Great Lakes and seniors, I write poetry to reveal and weave the jagged threads that are me. If one of my poems resonates with you, it is as if a beacon of light flashes through the...
Not Just Any Rock
Not a Petoskey. Not a skipping stone. Not even a geode. Jagged, slightly larger than a softball, the rock was among the other rocks hauled, dumped, and arranged ten years ago to create a border between the carport and manicured lawn. It rested comfortably among the...
You Ask
what am I doing to care for myself this day in May when winds plunge temperatures near freezing and the sun slips behind the too-familiar gray of spring? I am donning a winter coat, a pair of mittens and helping him...
Celebrating Mothers
After tediously tucking twigs and grasses into the juncture of the service berry tree outside Mother’s window for days, the robin nestled her plump body into the mud-lined floor of the nest and poked her tail in our direction as if to say, quit...
More Than a Tax on Tea
Could the king be checked by the people? That was the underlying question asked by the Sons of Liberty 250 years ago, according to author and historian Heather Cox Richardson. In a talk given April 18th in Boston’s Old North Church on the anniversary of...
What is Hope?
(Reprinted from May 21, 2017) Although there were thousands crammed into the Vatican Square in Rome, it was as if the Pope was talking directly to me. Speaking of Mary, the mother of Jesus and the woman for whom I was named, Pope Francis called her the...
So Much Wrong—So Little Cardboard
One look at the hundreds of people lining River Avenue April 5th in Holland, MI, the multiplicity of messages on hand-painted signs, the photographs and videos of similar peaceful protests across over 1300 towns and cities in the United States, and it should...
With Love, Anne
My dear friend, so many things are bombarding you, so few over which you have control. If I were there, I’d send the boys down to the man cave, pour each of us a glass of merlot, and usher you into the sunroom to chat. It would be like old times. You do not...