RACHEL WOMELSDUFF GOUGH and her family ditched the city for a patch of earth in the Snoqualmie Valley, lovingly named The Birch Path. Cheered on by her husband and two blonde babes, Rachel learns by getting her hands dirty, whether it’s gardening, chicken farming, canning, neighboring, or adventuring with soulmates in wild places. She reads constantly and can’t live without coffee, flowers, and classic mystery stories. She writes at kindredmag.com.
I read a lot so I thought I was adventurous, but I’m realizing that living vicariously through the experiences of characters stumbling out the backs of wardrobes into a wintery wood, being kidnapped aboard a spaceship to Malacandra, or tesseracting through the universe isn’t quite the same as riding a camel in Egypt, climbing to Machu Picchu, or eating my way through Italy.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the answer to the question ‘Who is my neighbor?’ is ‘Everyone.’ I appreciate this story because it opens up the world to boundless love regardless of race, class, religion. But, while they’re not mutually exclusive, there’s no substitute for truly knowing the people who physically live around you,…
We had always lived in the city, but after my husband, Bryan, and I brought home two babies to our tiny third-floor condo next to a 7-11—from which we witnessed many dangerous liaisons of both the narcotic and carnal variety, heard delivery trucks arrive next door to unload pallets of Mountain Dew and Doritos at…
Kindred 