Natalie Wilkinson

Joined May 2021

165 stories

Bio

Writing. Woven and Printed Textile Design. Architectural Drafting. Learning Japanese. Gardening. Not necessarily in that order.

IG: @maisonette _textiles

Achievements (6)

Stories (165)

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That Apples Don’t Fall Far
That apples don’t fall far from the tree is a reliable condition of living. Some drop when the rains don’t come, when it’s too hot,
By Natalie Wilkinson3 years ago in Poets
Routine
At five am the world is silent. The coffee made while holding my breath adds little sound to the day. I curl up in a chair and become the breathing part of it.
By Natalie Wilkinson4 years ago in Poets
Zambia Journal. Top Story - August 2022.
I start my story somewhere around the beginning of the middle. It is March in 2022. We are on The Great North Road, in a Land Rover, in Zambia, traveling from the capital, Lusaka, to Fimpulu in Luapula Province near the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) border. I am riding with my daughter, one of her bosses, a coworker of my daughter, and her mother. I landed at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport in Lusaka two days previously, after twenty-two hours of flying from JFK in New York and a mid-journey eight-hour overnight layover in Doha, Qatar. The other mother, an American living in Dubai, had just landed after a seven-hour flight.
By Natalie Wilkinson4 years ago in Wander
Sweepstakes
It is the steady swooshing sound that wakes me up. It vaguely registers that I am on a train as I struggle to reach osmosis through the thin membrane between wakefulness and sleep. I hear quiet Japanese spoken as I strain to open my eyes.
By Natalie Wilkinson4 years ago in Fiction
Making Room
I’m cleaning out my daughter’s room, the parade of thirty years since she came to me in a dream; strawberry blond and blue-eyed in a largely brunette world.
By Natalie Wilkinson4 years ago in Poets
With Regret
My father grew up red-haired, freckled, and blue-eyed on a South Dakota potato farm. Until he was twelve, his family plowed the land with horses and used kerosene lanterns for light.
By Natalie Wilkinson4 years ago in Families
Early Summer
After the rhubarb, asparagus, and salad greens of late spring, summer begins in earnest in the garden. Next in line after that trio, there are the strawberries of early summer.
By Natalie Wilkinson4 years ago in Feast
We Knew Dragons
There weren't always dragons in the Valley. No one today remembers the year when the first ones flew in, black and ominous on the wing, and settled in the unoccupied northern forest.
By Natalie Wilkinson4 years ago in Fiction
Sayings
Where is your heart? Wear your heart on your sleeve like the numbers on your mailbox. Engrave it like a tattoo on the palm of your hand. Hold it out to strangers.
By Natalie Wilkinson4 years ago in Poets
Ready to Move Mountains
Ready to Move Mountains Dec 12, 2021 If I could write with the simplicity and straight-as-an-arrow truth that Tom Petty always brought to his songs, I’d have achieved something.
By Natalie Wilkinson4 years ago in Poets
10 Things Architects Wish Their Clients Knew About Building
What are the requirements necessary to call yourself an architect? In the United States, architects are licensed professionals. Five years of study is the minimum length of time to earn a Bachelor of Architecture. After that, candidates must apprentice to a licensed architect to create a total of eight years (in New York State) of combined study and practice. This total can vary from state to state. Some states allow the substitution of experience for a degree but the total number of years of experience required varies from eight to thirteen.
By Natalie Wilkinson4 years ago in Journal
First Snow
I awake each year to Bruegellian falling snow, sharp pinpricks of sound scattered across the pitched roof of the bedroom. The ground gradually whitens in the half light. Grey trees stand tall and sharp and individual against it.
By Natalie Wilkinson4 years ago in Poets