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— Jan Goldyn —

June Glow

June is flowing

over cool river beds,

splashing at dragon flies

sun beams dancing ‘round her head.

Honeysuckle days and moonflower nights

strawberry picking

fireflies in the inky sky.

In the lantern’s glow

sleep comes calm and quiet

with the soft scented cover

of a June-garden blanket.

June Update

June, for centuries, has been known as the month of weddings! 

In ancient Rome, June was dedicated to Juno, the goddess of marriage and women. And with it’s warm and sunny weather in many parts of the world, it’s the perfect time for celebrations.

June makes us feel fresh and renewed!

During school days, June means freedom — the final ringing of the bell before summer break. In our last school years, graduation feels bittersweet — the missing of old times and old friends but the looking forward with excitement to a new chapter.

June, when I was young, was filled with things like woven sweet-pea flower crowns, catching lightening bugs in jelly jars covered with hole-poked aluminum foil. We’d watch the fascinating twinkling and then release them into the night.

Games of hide and seek in the twilight during the longest days of the year filled the air with magical laughter.

The summer solstice lands in mid-Jun, signaling the year’s longest day and shortest night. Many cultures for centuries have celebrated it. The Celts marked the occasion with lighting bonfires, dancing and feasting.

However you celebrate or remember June days, may you have warm dreamy afternoons and sleepy wild-rose scented nights ♥

Prequel, Julia

My vision for the unveiling of “Julia” had been on a Spring 2025 horizon. I’m now focusing on Summer 2025. But I promise I will update you regularly well in advance!

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I am so excited to be working on my Prequel — Julia. You’ve all given me such super feedback on Coal Town Girls! Those of you who have grown up locally have been sharing your excitement at seeing the landmarks of your youth (or your present!) showcased within its pages.

Now, with Julia, I’m taking a journey further back in time to the people, places, struggles, triumphs and dreams of those who came before Joan and Mary. I can’t wait for you to join me.

June Sneak Peek

-Excerpt from Julia

The white of the gown seemed to make Julia's eyes float dreamily – like wisps of blue light in a clouded sky. It felt as though she were part of an enchanted garden at dawn. Julia smiled.

"Do you think he'll like it?" she asked Anna and her sister, Helen.

"He'd be like no man I ever knew if he didn't take you immediately into his arms," said Helen.

Julia laughed. She looked at Anna. "You sure John can afford this?"

Anna waived her hand flippantly. "Oh, don't speak of money, Julia. Your brother loves you dearly. Now stay still so I can pin the hem,” Anna said as she adjusted the bottom of the gown.

Julia's eyes narrowed slightly. "I just can't figure why John wants us to wait 'til August now for the wedding instead of the end of this month. I haven't talked to Francis for a few days but I feel sure he won't like the news.”

* * * * * * *

Jan’s Reading Nook

Throughout history, our ancestors gathered around fires telling and soaking in the magic that is “story.” This primal need continues and has not left us! I love to share thoughts on nuggets of literature I’ve been enjoying and exploring. For me, a main focus has been historical fiction, literary fiction, family sagas. Although all genres have their own jewels.

The Glass Castle

— Jeannette Walls —

Jeannette Walls’ Memoir, Glass Castle, had me hooked as soon as I started Chapter Two:

I was three years old, and we were living in a trailer park in a southern Arizona town whose name I never knew. I was standing on a chair in front of the stove, wearing a pink dress my grandmother had bought for me.

Pink was my favorite color. The dress’s skirt stuck out like a tutu and I liked to spin around in front of the mirror, thinking I looked like a ballerina.

But at that moment, I was wearing the dress to cook hot dogs watching them swell and bob in the boiling water.

There’s something intriguing about reading the nitty gritty details of a dysfunctional life. I think it ties in with our desire to see the human spirit triumph above it’s circumstances.

Jeannette’s young life rolled along in a chaotic way, tinged with the poor decisions of the grown-ups around her — their addictions, neglectfulness, lack of self-discipline, and endless relocations due to debt.

But the grown-ups in her life also brought laughter, beauty and excitement. That’s where the entanglement became confusing, her father’s dream of building a “glass castle” ever on her mind.

Jeannette and her three siblings formed a strong bond amid their constant need to fend for themselves from searching dumpsters for food to trying to dig up roots for dinner.

The truth was, I was tired of taking on people who ridiculed us for the way we lived. I just didn’t have it in me to argue Mom and Dad’s case to the world.

That was why I didn’t own up to my parents in front of Professor Fuchs. She was one of my favorite teachers, a tiny dark passionate woman with circles under here eyes who taught political science.

One day professor Fuchs asked if homelessness was the result of drug abuse and misguided entitlement programs, as the conservatives claimed, or did it occur, as the liberals argued, because of faults in the social-service programs and the failure to create economic opportunity for the poor?

Professor Fuchs called on me.

I hesitated, “Sometimes, I think, it’s neither.”

“Can you explain yourself?”

“I think that maybe sometimes people get the lives they want.”

“Are you saying homeless people want to live on the street?” Professor Fuchs asked. “Are you saying they don’t want warm beds and roofs over their heads?”

“Not exactly,” I said. I was fumbling for words. “They do, but if some of them were willing to work hard and make compromises, they might not have ideal lives, but they could make ends meet.”

Professor Fuchs walked around from behind her lectern. “What do you know about the lives of the underprivileged?” she asked. She was practically trembling with agitation. “What do you know about the obstacles the underclass faces?”

The other students were staring at me.

“You have a point,” I said.

The Walls children eventually move to New York City, setting up their own lives and purposes. Their parents follow sometime down the road, occasionally using their children’s homes as “flop stations.” Jeannette learns to weave them into her world, loving them but not allowing their chaos back in.

I greatly enjoy the last line, set as the now-grown children finish Thanksgiving dinner with their mother after their father has passed:

“A wind picked up, rattling the windows, and the candle flames suddenly shifted, dancing along the border between turbulence and order.”

This one line summed up Jeannette’s life.

Coal Town Girls

Coal Town girls was an idea that bubbled up over the years and finally found its way to paper. My mother, Joan, and her best friend, Mary, were often found on our back porch, telling stories of their youth -- the town, the river, the people, the adventures, the sadness's, the joys. 

Each month I’ll try to highlight a tidbit of history from Coal Town Girls!

—-Excerpt from Coal Town Girls—-

Along with their husbands, Joan’s Grandma, Cecelia, and Mary’s Mother, Sara, existed in the world of dreams and coal mining.

They had scrubbed blackened miners, planted lush gardens, packed thousands of lunch buckets, laughed, worried about miners, hauled water, raised babies, buried babies, split wood, sang, traveled across the ocean with small children, cooked delectable dinners, eked out thread-bare meals, danced.