Five Top Passions and a Few Guilty Pleasures by Sarah Black – Guest Blog

Long and Short Reviews welcomes Sarah Black, who is celebrating today’s release of War Paint.

These are the things I care most about in my everyday life. The list has changed over time, but today, here are the top five:

1. Local food, farmers’ markets, and co-ops. I am very passionate about local food, and support the farmers and the local co-ops to, hopefully, move us toward a more sustainable food system. I am extremely bothered by the condition of farm workers and farmers in America, and also don’t like the notion of the environmental impact of shipping food across the country in trucks. When I walk around my new city of Roanoke, I keep an eye out for small plots of land that can support an urban agriculture initiative. Roanoke has one of the most active local food movements in the country, with a daily farmers’ market I can walk to in ten minutes. But though I am passionate about these things, I also love cheese, and can justify cheese moving its slow way from France or Italy to my kitchen. Because, you know, cheese!

2. Dogs. I love my rescue dog. I love most dogs I come across and would bring them all home if I could. I think dogs can see right into our hearts, and that’s why they are so ready to love. I tend to be a bit shy, but my dog meets lots of people and brings me along. He’s been going into every bar with an open door we pass—not sure what that is about.

3. I love sewing by hand, and knitting, crochet, lace-making—the old ways that are slow and beautiful. With a good light and some beeswax to keep the thread from tangling, I can sew for hours. I crochet sometimes without making anything in particular, just moving meditation. I have a passion for old handmade quilts and antique lace, and will carry these beauties home and put them on my bed and love them until they are in pieces, as they were intended. I always use them. I think they want to be used.

4. I am becoming a minimalist since retirement. What I need to be happy is getting smaller and simpler with time, and now I live in a tiny downtown pad with my son, and we share a bathroom and my closet is also the linen closet. I can live in leggings and denim shirts; I wear red Keds almost every day. Some days I don’t even put on makeup. I’ve sold the car and we walk everywhere, which limits the amount of stuff we can haul home.

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Thanks for reading my new story! War Paint,/I> is out May 25 from Dreamspinner.