Author: Debra Palmquist

Writer, blogger, matriarch
Roots, Share, Tend

Nana Who?

Featuredby Debra Palmquist2 Comments on Nana Who?
Nana Who?

"With the words, You are a grandmother... I became something different than I'd ever been before." Anna Quindlen from Nanaville: Adventures in Grandparenting by Anna Quindlen At Orchestra Hall with Louis to hear Cantus sing with Sweet Honey in the Rock, 2017. For the first time, my husband (aka Papa) and I (Didi) took care [...]

Dream, Grow, Roots, Share

Swim Flight

Featuredby Debra Palmquist11 Comments on Swim Flight
Swim Flight

In a dream I dive off a pier into a lake.  I am not a strong swimmer, but today I dive with ease, surface quickly and skim along the water’s surface like Olympic racers do, in a rhythm that is easy and strong, fast and even.  I can see fish and plant life below the [...]

Roots, Share

Containing Grief

Featuredby Debra Palmquist6 Comments on Containing Grief

My parents died of cancer, mom (in 2017) just 8 weeks after diagnosis and Dad (in 2014) after being sick for a year.  And over these last few years, I have been a student of grief, hungry for ways to express it in a healing way, to seek out others to give me a “how [...]

Grow, Tend, Travel

Foraging

Featuredby Debra Palmquist5 Comments on Foraging

One of my little rituals while at the cabin is to fill three small vases with the blooms and greens I gather from my first walk. I grab my scissors and walk the yard, driveway and road ditches. I guess you could say I forage for flora. Flora is the plant life of a particular [...]

Grow

Livelihood

by Debra Palmquist1 Comment on Livelihood

"I find people for jobs, not jobs for people." My day job is search. Some refer to us as "headhunters" which seems a bit primitive, and limiting. In my work to find the right person for a particular role, I consider the whole person, not just their knowledge and experience. Will they want to live [...]

Grow, Roots

Forest Bathing

Featuredby Debra Palmquist5 Comments on Forest Bathing
Forest Bathing

Friluftsliv “open air living” is the desire to be in nature. The Japanese call it shinrin-yoku “taking in the forest atmosphere” or “forest bathing.” I first heard of this concept in a yoga class. We were asked to gaze out the window and find a tree in the near distance and study it while in [...]