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.
Busy Griefs, Raw Towns
It is during the spring, when the honeysuckle’s white sliver of petals showers the roadside with sweetness, that the last mile and a half of my morning jog seems less formidable. This morning I violated all jogging protocols and paused to smell the bush’s...
Why Am I Here?
A Mother/Daughter poem written by Jane McKinney and Mary McKSchmidt to “keep our wits about us” during a recent trip to the emergency room. Fortunately, all is well. Why Am I Here?Here in this dinky roomstripped to the waist,given a shirt that opensin the back,...
Miracle of Small Things
When I saw the effects COVID’s social isolation was having on my mother, the difficult physical and mental changes that occur with age, witnessed the deep sorrow lingering from the deaths of her husband and dog, and years later, from the death of her twin, I...
Aging
A drop of dew dribblesdown a stem,lingering slightlyon each tiny hair before continuingto earth’s floor. Gravity will notbe thwarted. Nor will the snowballing effectsof time. So, why,on days,is it so difficult to findthe robin-egg blueof the...
Legacies
The morning of the moon’s passing, she whispered the unthinkable;that she had not the energy to keep writing. Like the tundra swans, necks long and extendedstretching to reach the Carolinasfrom their home in the Arctic,it was all she could do to get by. And then...
A Respite
Alongside ice mountainscreated by the fury of wind and wavesthere is a silence that stills the heart’s agonyso that one might noticethe lone eagle glidingoverheadand for that momentbe a child againand...
Standing United
With my one good hand I type an email to my Republican congressman to thank himfor standing unitedwith the presidentwith Ukrainewith NATOwith all democraciesincluding oursfighting to survivean invasionby a predatorso commonit is has become invisiblelike the PFAS...
Poets at Play
Seven miles apartphones in handsa mother in the flatlandsedging the citydaughter in the forestof the dunesswapping similesto describe evening skieslike the blush of a magnoliawings of a fluttering monarcheggs in the nest of a robin petals of a long-spur violetspray...
Have I Told You Enough?
The rumbling, though far in the distance, triggersa quickening of my heart and I grip the paddle, remembering when things did not go well, when I was deceived by the glassy surface of the waterconcealing the perils beneath the swift-flowing river;when I smashed...
Were It Not for the Moon
The moon at dawn over western skies. So many things to check off the list, the stuff of life that overwhelms, consumes, depletes. You know what I mean. I have lived my life defined by what I do, but there are moments too powerful to ignore; like the time the full...
Robin-egg Blue
Sleeping Bear Dunes Earlier this month, I was looking for inspiration, something to remind me to find the patches of robin-egg blue in a sky often layered with darkness. I remembered a group of women I met two years ago, before COVID, women across religions,...
Learning
A red, green and white Christmas embroidery hangsyear-round in her living room. Long, narrow, it spells out a word she says occasionally as we slog through our daily exercise routine; one written frequently, she tells me, in her journal; a three-letter word to...