Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

So...here are my thoughts on Glinda. As I prepared myself to step into her shoes again, I read all of the  "conspiracy theories" suggesting that Glinda was a power- hungry, manipulating bad witch. I love the theory, but I disagree.  Dorothy longs for adventure, to see new places, and to make true friends who understand her. My Glinda knows this, and therefore, sets her on a path to experience all of those things. The Wicked Witch of the West, although frightening, turns out to be an easy-to-defeat foe. (And Glinda is always keeping an eye on things and just a quick bubble trip away should Dorothy and her friends get in over their heads.) Dorothy must learn that she has power of her own and that even the scariest monsters have grave weaknesses. She comes to realize that the truest friends met along life's path may not look the way we expect them to look, but those unlikely companions hold our hands and stick by our sides through the darkest and most uncertain times. L...

A Muslim hipster, a vegetarian drag queen, a good ol' boy from out in the sticks of Randolph County, and a feminist who loves mystery novels all walk into an audition... No, it isn't the beginning of a tedious joke; its exactly the sort of thing that regularly happens when my local community theatre group holds auditions for shows. It's easy to gaze upon your smart phone and feel a bit of discriminating superiority as you read acid-tongued tweets about those "other people" who disagree with your political, social, and religious beliefs.  Viral memes which ridicule anyone who could possibly support idiotic candidates or policies are so easy and fun to share.  It is now simpler than ever to lump all of those ignorant buffoons together and dismiss them into the category of persons for whom nobody has time.  Sometimes I yearn for the pre-social media days when I didn't have to know that the nice lady I just met at the gym was a member of the Facebook group ...

Recently I have had this niggling desire to write.  It has been a niggling desire that I have hushed up with social media, Food Network, and Utz potato chips. If I am honest, I have been unmotivated to empower my writing self because I am afraid.  I am afraid that I do not have anything new or relevant to say.  Additionally I have realized that most of my obsessive thoughts spiral around my children, and, as they grow older, I do not feel as though I have permission to write publicly about their experiences.  Sharing an anecdote about the cute thing your three year old did at the park is completely different from venting about your fourteen year old’s friend drama.  (I was recently mortified when I read a blog in which a mother had written in detail about her daughter’s experience with puberty along with a self-congratulatory description of all the cute things she had done as a mother to make her daughter’s first period a “special celebration”.  Could you...

Here I am in the place I’ve longed to be for ten years.  I’m back.  It all feels rather surreal.  Thomas Wolfe had already warned me that I couldn’t ever really go home again.  I knew this.  I have never been this age, had these children at this point in time, or been the me who lives in this skin in this place before.  Everyone here has also grown and changed.   The roads have changed.  The barbecue, hushpuppies, and sweet tea, however, all seem to have remained constant.  Praise the Lord. I am elated to be back in North Carolina.  Yesterday I ate my lunch outside in the sunshine.  Folks up in Michigan are buried under a foot of snow and enduring sub-zero temps as I shut my eyes and feel the vitamin D being absorbed through my cheeks.  It is wonderful.  But I am impatient. I feel the burden of impatience when I wake in the morning.  I want to feel at home at home again.  Reinventing myself here sho...