Theresa Bakker
Sundays columnist
Theresa Bakker has been a journalist in Alaska for almost two decades. She's working on her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the Rainier Writing Workshop. She and her husband own an old house in downtown Fairbanks where they live with their son, Owen. It's often the subject of her biweekly column for the Fairbanks Daily News- Miner. Send her an e-mail at theresabakker@yahoo.com.
Recent Stories
- One mother revels in the ritual of swimming lesson sign-up day
- Sunday, Aug. 24, 2008
- My son is learning to swim. He works on his flutter kick in the bathtub, riding the porcelain waves while his moon face struggles to stay above the horizon. Eyelashes soaked to three times their normal size ring his wide eyes before he squeezes them shut to dive under again.
- Familiar faces make a hometown into something special
- Sunday, Aug. 10, 2008
- I saw an old friend at the grocery store the other day. I knew her face right away, although it took a few moments for the details to catch up.
- Creamer’s garden bridges gap between people, wildlife
- Sunday, July 27, 2008
- Just because I don’t have a garden in my backyard doesn’t mean I haven’t been gardening this summer. I’ve watered and weeded in all types of weather. I spent several rainy mornings with my knees in the dirt, fingertips stained with mud.
- Backyard wilderness, whether seed or foreign weed, still brings joy
- Sunday, July 13, 2008
- I finally gave up. Every year I tried to plant vegetables in my tired plots. Too lazy to add new soil or build some raised beds, I defined insanity by plunking down fistfuls of cash for hardy starts budding with the promise of abundance.
- Visit to the museum helps connect old to the new
- Sunday, June 29, 2008
- Fairbanks often feels like a living museum. This is a place where pipeline parts serve as front yard planters and rusty old engines decorate public spaces. Our kids grow up among relics from the past.
- Start of summer means something different to each Fairbanksan
- Sunday, June 15, 2008
- The chokecherry trees in our yard bloomed a couple of weeks ago, leaving the boughs dripping with fragrant bouquets. That got me excited about summer. “It’s almost here,” I sang, while the flowers took their place as the official greeter of the season, offering spritzes more precious than anything you could buy at the department store perfume counter.
- Prized bread bags, coupons another step on path to oldness
- Sunday, June 1, 2008
- I went to Anchorage for a journalism conference a few weeks ago, leaving the kid and the husband and the household behind. It was like high school. I crashed in a friend’s hotel room, where we stayed up too late eating junk food and talking about boys. Whole stretches of time were unclaimed and available for adventure.
- Keeping an eye on the neighborhood brings people together
- Sunday, May 18, 2008
- Earlier this month, after the season finally turned and the leaf buds were starting to bulge, my neighbor Mark waved to me as I drove down the street. His gestures got more emphatic as I got closer, so I stopped. Right there in the middle of the road.
- Visit from lacewing brings thoughts of spring, mortality
- Sunday, May 4, 2008
- Something moved in the corner of the window as I washed my hands. My eyes were relaxed into a soft focus so as not to see the dirty dishes piled up in the sink. After a long winter with no buzzing or beating of wings to lull me into submission, the skittering bug caught my attention right away.
- It’s still possible to feel lost in your own neighborhood
- Sunday, April 20, 2008
- My 4-year-old son is obsessed with getting lost. As he watches his dad preparing for a bison hunting trip, he warns him not to take too many turns. “How will Daddy find his way back home?” he wonders out loud.