My wedding toast to the amazing man I just married.

Oklahoma’s leading cannabis legal warrior leads the good fight with some spiritual help. ...

I took my mother for granted because she mostly kept herself contained. I didn’t really appreciate how much she was churning on the inside. I didn’t stop to think.

My sister, Kirsten, texted me a briefly worded prediction the other day – one that filled me with sadness because it felt so poignant and, in all likelihood, entirely plausible. She wrote, “Our democracy will fall apart when we do more killing than educating.”

Placing the Sedaris book face down, I abandoned my laptop, phone and jacket at the little desk I had found by a window and wandered off in search of the ladies room.

Much to my surprise, a half disrobed clown stood washing at the sink. At least, my initial impression was that this person must be a clown as she wore heavy white face paint, ridiculous amounts of thick red lipstick and at least a small ramekin’s worth of black eye makeup.

A Hemingway quote leapt to mind earlier this morning while sitting quietly in the pre-dawn, wondering how on earth I could possibly eulogize my father. When asked about the rigors of writing, Ernest is said to have replied, “Oh, there is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

My second feature story published with Sensi Magazine, Spring 2023 Michigan Issue.

Meet the innovators who set - then exceed - the standard for extraction technology.

A study of a mother, her three teenagers and the irrational and painful mathematics of the universe; beautiful at times and, though it sure is Big, is sure as hell ain’t Easy.

I just joined Substack - a writing platform with subscription services. If you follow me, chances are good that you’ll have more than just tumbleweeds blowing around your mailbox!

elizabethmcwilliams.substack.com

Sometimes it seems like it would be a lot easier to just lay down all the nonsense.

And by nonsense, you mean nonsense in the truest sense of the word: non-sensical; without reason.

My four month old kitten died suddenly last Saturday. His name was Timothy. An unusual name for a cat, but my daughter wanted him to have an unapologetic human name - like Carl. Or Paul. Or Lewis.

Some mornings I wake gloriously triumphant and pump my wings like the Goddess Nike. Is that arrogance? Perhaps. Other mornings, I wake knee-deep in limitation and about as clear as mud. Is there a goddess of humility? Ah, yes. I just checked. Her name is Aidos and she hides her face, casts her eyes downward and covers her breast.

TriMed Farm is a place with modest roots that grew, in very short order, to a company with a remarkably leafy canopy. Located in Chesaning, Michigan, TriMed started out as a relatively small cannabis growing operation with just six acres of land. By 2022, TriMed had swelled to thirty-six acres producing upwards of 17,000 plants.

I studied my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Forty-eight years old yet still blessed with a relatively youthful body. A body that has deep wells of energy – enthusiasm, even. Could it be true, I wondered? Could I really have cancer? Could I be dying?

Triggers: an event or thought that births a psychological thorn which, in turn, snags a thread from the folds of our minds and leaves us tossing and turning – worried, anxious, filled with self-doubt, circling the drain with our thoughts and attacking our psyches with feelings of shame, regret or self-loathing.

Romantic love, familial love, filial love, platonic love…just LOVE.

An early morning meditation on water, sunlight, waking birds and self-consciousness.

Can obligation to a loved one be simply an expression and manifestation of love, and not one of unwelcomed and unwanted duty? An essay in the making over the course of the last several months.

We shift, we morph. How we used to be is no longer how we are.

In order to coax such change, we literally go through the motions of putting to death a former life or identity in order to birth the new life or identity. We act, essentially, as both death doula and midwife to ourselves. Only this time the order is reversed: death first, birth last.