A short story, "Upping Stakes," has been published online in the Winter 2021 issue of The Courtship of Winds. I must admit to several possibly autobiographical or at least recognizable elements in this, including the dislike of change and upset which I share with the by-preference-unmoving heroine, Kaya.
Kaya, during her seven years of college (as long as she could reasonably stretch it out) had gathered all the grounding weight she could—all kinds of massive belongings that she'd imagined she could count on to keep her anchored.
First, a set of kettledrums, after she'd joined the youth orchestra as a freshman. Then a letterpress and cabinet of type drawers, with various fonts, after she bought the cottage she'd been renting near the college—useful later for the covers she designed and printed for the nearby Press. And finally, in her late twenties, the seated stone Kwan Yin carved by the artist she would have married if he hadn't developed a fatal itch to "see the world." There were also the heavy words she set around her, round and dense as paperweights, her substantial "no"s, and cautious "oh?"s, the smooth hard-shelled walnuts she set in various inherited Nambé bowls, Kenyan beaded bowls, pine needle bowl with African blue beads, Hopi wedding basket, and woven coil basket, set out everywhere in the cottage as offerings to whatever god or goddess was the inverse of Hermes, the god of travel and transitions.
image: Gypsy Caravan, source unknown
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