I like to explore and tell descriptive stories about places. I also make jewelry, music and mixed-media art.
October 1, 2023, Norfolk, VA: I find my fall Gourd Goddess at Food Lion as part of a plentiful harvest of gourds and pumpkins. She’s an Ornamental Gourd, not hardshell, so she’s going to decay over the course of the coming winter. Last year I documented my Rotting Gourd Goddess’s journey for the first time, […]
Read More Journey of the Rotting Gourd Goddess, 2024May, 2023 While at Stanimal’s hiker hostel, the manager, Bugs, suggests I check out the Russell Museum in downtown Waynesboro while I’m here. This is not something that I have time for, or would have even planned, but I am going downtown. After visiting the local herb and stone shop, Pyramid – which is fairly […]
Read More Waynesboro, part 3: The Russell Museum… and a Charlottesville outroSHE WORE A GREEN LYCRA DRESS TO THE WAREHOUSE PARTY The parties were funded by DuPont as it set up on a spring basin near the river. The scene had been Basic before that, it was all metal. Then came the industrial dance all-nighters and occasional death rock and harsh noise. It got huge, over […]
Read More Waynesboro, Part 2: A Walk Along the RiverMay, 2023, Afton and Waynesboro, VA INTERSECTIONS and PORTALS I’m standing at Rockfish Gap of the Blue Ridge, looking east as Interstate 64 descends toward the Virginia piedmont and Charlottesville. To the west, the highway drops in to the Shenandoah valley. Here the Blue Ridge Parkway meets Skyline Drive, to the south and north respectively, […]
Read More Rockfish Gap and Waynesboro, part 1: CROSSING and ARRIVALApril 2, 2023, Red Wing Park, Virginia Beach, Virginia Welcome, Spring. After reviving this blog a year ago and documenting visits to some of my favorite areas across the state of Virginia, I had to pause again and take care of home life matters during the colder season. It didn’t snow in our area, and […]
Read More Cherry blossom (sakura) festival, Virginia BeachAround Halloween, I bought a small Gourd from a market. She was orange and bright and alive, like the Pumpkins around her. Unlike the hard-shell Calabash Gourds used for containers, tools, and art objects for æons, she is an edible vine Gourd*, with the lifespan of a season or less. And so I sat her […]
Read More Journey of the rotting Gourd GoddessA man in a three-cornered hat, amid the howling wind, turns toward a kid and says “sorry, the stocks are closed today” …then he walks away. Then the kid disappears, and I stand alone by the stocks in the windy lot. It’s two days before Christmas, and a winter storm is pushing through Virginia. Temperatures […]
Read More Winter winds in WilliamsburgCome walk this weekend through downtown Norfolk and help me get a new walking tour game published! It’s free, fun, and you get to be the first to play the game. If you’re in Hampton Roads, come to Town Point in Norfolk by the waterfront, download the Questo app and contact me and I’ll help […]
Read More ChRISTMAS IN NORFOLK: A GAME ON QUESTOSeptember 2022, Norfolk, Virginia It’s Autumn Equinox in the northern hemisphere of Earth, where the position of the sun makes the day and night equal in length, for a short time. Though it’s warm now on the Chesapeake Bay, fall is now upon us, and the changes in weather will come soon. For me, celebrating […]
Read More A Labyrinth for EquinoxCamping near Pungo, Virginia Beach, with my parents, loblolly pines stand over us, offering little shade in the bright, humid air. A small canal encircles the campground, connecting water to Muddy Creek and the shallow Back Bay. A mile or so from here, Grace White Sherwood lived, farmed, and probably swam, 300+ years ago. Grace’s story is famous in Hampton Roads, an herbalist and farmer in colonial Princess Anne County known as the “witch of Pungo” and the only* person convicted of witchcraft in Virginia, surviving her “ducking” trial by swimming to the shore.
Curvy 2-lane roads take us through floodplain and forest, with watery ditches on both sides. Occasionally there is a church, horse training center, or boat landing. Our campground, North Bayshore, is at the end of such a road, adjacent to the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. We rent a canoe from camp and float down the canal to Muddy Creek, in the Refuge. It would be very easy to slip out into the network of waterways and spend a day out there exploring…
arianna's creative travels 