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.
Influence of Gardeners
For the Petal Pushers Garden Club of Kalamazoo In the autumn, a mother removed dead leaves from geraniums and hung them upside-down in the cellar. Winter skeletons. A child slipped down the stairs to the dimly-lit room to wait for the green sticks to become leaves....
The Holiday Card
“We’ll Be Friends Forever, Won’t We, Pooh?”Piglet in A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Poo He waits until making eye contact, shoulders hunchedover a red walker, black jacket zipped to his chin,hood pulled about his head as the uncharacteristic winds roar through the...
Coming This Spring
About the bookAfter she loses her husband of sixty-three years and six weeks later, her beloved dog, Jane McKinney turns to writing poetry to find comfort. Residing in Arizona and feeling isolated from her six children located in the eastern part of the...
That Day is Today
In the last chapter of my 2018 memoir, Uncharted Waters, I wrote: The sun, once a fist above the shore, is dissolving into the golden streaks of sunset. I reach across the cockpit for his hand and squeeze it gently. Someday with misty eyes and a sad heart,...
Home is Not the House
Home is not the housein which he told me no paint brushfit the palm of his handand the mosquitoes chewed a hole in my back as I singlehandedly painted the exterior trim of the two-story structure in the woods of Wisconsin; nor the one in which he gifted mea crowbar...
Miracle Within Small Things
A Mother/Daughter Presentation to the Petal Pushers Garden Club of Kalamazoo, MI In April, 2008, a daughter packs her car with a hodgepodge of camping gear and sets off alone to explore the eastern coast of Lake Michigan in campgrounds stretching from the Indiana...
Teachable Moment
It has been several yearsbut we rememberand look to the second-floor balconywhere once he sat in a lawn chairand waved as we walkedtoward the side door of the building;how he saved you a seatat the dining table,back when they had staffto serve dinner to interested...
No Leisurely Stroll
The man soldiers beneath an overstuffed backpacktowering above his head. Oblivious to the sultrymid-morning sun, unaffected by sweat dribblingdown cheeks grayed by a closely-cropped beard, lost in sounds emanating from white earbuds, he is not a familiar face...
Trying to Make Sense of Things
I do not know why he, a baseball cap beneathhis hard hat, silver-white beard, easy smile, and wearing the lime-glow vest of construction, stopped to tell me her story. I was lost in the fragrance of the beach rose, savoring a sweet smell strong enoughto overpower the...
To Somebody’s Father
A block away and still I notice your tousled hair, rumpled overcoat too small to button, eyes rivetedon me. Seven decades of training chill the sweat off my body and yet I continue jogging toward you, a compass needle drawn to the magnetic meridian. But imaginary...
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 fragrance. I...
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,...