“The Stories We Can’t Let Go: Broken Open, a memoir in essays, reflects on childhood and the lessons that come with age”
by Laura Moulton, Senior Correspondent for Street Roots, August 28
Excerpt:
“The essays in this collection offer life as a sacrament, and people who make sacrifices for one another. They explore what it means to live a contemplative life, one open and receptive to the natural world: oak trees, creek, forest, farm, the verdant Willamette Valley. Gies combines an obvious affinity for a good story with a close study of humans in all their brokenness and illumination.
For all the years she has worked as a writer and beloved teacher in Portland, she has also made her mark on the city, in the writing she did for Street Roots newspaper for many years, and the work she did for 17 years with elderly and disabled people downtown, displaced from buildings being renovated or condemned. She has lived intentionally small, attempting to organize her life in a way that she says ‘permitted the most writing time and just enough money to feed me.’ Broken Open offers a rich portrait of a life well lived, well loved, and captures the stories that Gies couldn’t let go of until she’d written them down. All the better for us.”
