Sitting at the Ironing

October 24, 2026 / aggiemurch / 4 Comments

Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side

The laundry is piled on the bed. There is masses of it, left over from before we went away, and now more has been added as we returned. It is washed, wrinkled and overflowing. There is no room for napping. While pawing through it, socks and undies get folded but the rest remains waiting for their warming turn under the iron. Not everyone irons today – but I do. As I pull out the ironing board and turn on the iron I look at the pile and believe it looks back at me. Where and how to start? I reach for the first pair of shorts – yes, even those get a once over lightly – and sigh.

The consternation of choosing where to start matches the full grey rain-cloud that is overwhelming my mind with thoughts of the desecration of Gaza, the bombs lobed between Russian and the Ukraine, the wars all over the world, the breakdown of medical services and the frightful, terrible behaviour of those in power in the United States of America and beyond. I don’t know where to turn or what to think as I sit here ironing. What can I do?

There are sweaters needing a soft touch, shirts and pajamas, pillowcases and tea towels, before the trousers pressed with a heavier hand. But as I work through the piles, I slow down. I can read and I can write, can’t I? And I can reach out to other sisters who write.

Harvesting History While Farming the Flats at the art show celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Palomarin Field Station of Point Blue Conservation Science. Thank you.

Substack has given us all a new platform where we can search out and find like-minded writers and readers. I realize the writers I read are almost all women, who are tackling their own version of the piles of unwashed laundry that are littering our world. I start with some Sisters from Sybilline Press that publishes the brilliant work of women authors over 50. And among that brilliance there are some pretty passionate writers who speak out on the particular messes left on our doorsteps. Each one finds their own way to take on the stale loaves of bread that are the detritus of manic males and smash them open into crumbs on the worn wooden table of our lives. An analogy – I think lifted from that Creative Loudmouth Lorraine Devon Wilke.

I’m not sure I’m making any sense. But as I iron, just thinking about these women, calms me. Each one of them – metaphorically – has reached for a pile, of silks, cottons or linen to examine and expose the wrinkles and we each iron the creases.

Julia Park Tracey with her Book and Bone (@juliaparktracey) has written about waiting for her father to die. She wonders if she can forgive him his parenting, and how much do those thoughts render her a bad person – and one asks – in whose eyes? That’s a big scab to peel off of your life’s history. But how bravely she does it, and what courage she ladles out to her readers.

Lorraine Devon Wilke with her Musings of a Creative Loud Mouth (@lorrainedevonwilke) gets so mad, each and every time the OrangeOne, by his behavior, drives increased cruelty and attacks on women rendered with no impunity. And that is only one of her targets in the world she sees.

Karin K. Jensen (@karinjensen607571) looks again, reflecting at the resilience of her mother in her Memoir The Strength of Water, and in so doing leads us to see the strength of all mothers; good, not so, and indifferent. I am grateful to read these three Sybil writers on Substack. There are others, taking up their particular banner, raking through the muck of their farm yard. With that analogy you might want to check out Sarah Langford’s Tipping Point (@saramaggielangford). Then there is the supreme queen Margaret Atwood – In the Writer’s Burrow. Atwood remains our fearless leader in all things political, unjust and environmental. At 86 – with nothing to prove to anyone – she continues to write, overturning rocks hiding cesspools in the path to democracy, reminding us of the history that led us to where we are.

There are the softer men, like the artist Alex Hillkurtz (@alexhillkurtzart) who also share their own thoughts as to how our/their art can find a place to bring comfort and beauty to this world.

It has taken days to write this piece. I am mixing and muddling so many metaphors and maybe that is the state of my mind right now. The laundry that first inspired this sceed is all folded and put away while now a new pile is waiting on the bed. But maybe, having laid this out on the page, to be read and received by others, I can pull out the ironing board, plug in the iron and face the world once more.

This has been A Letter From. A Broad Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side and as always supported by Beatrice from MurchStudio

With a deep homage to Tilloe Olson and ‘I Stand Here Ironing’.

Autumnal Harvest

September 6, 2026 / aggiemurch / 2 Comments

Written and recorded by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side.

‘So you did it twice,” said a very young Beatrice when she was reckoning up the presence of herself and her brother and checking her new information of where babies came from. I kept a pretty straight face as I replied, “Yes. We did. Twice.” This was not the time to elaborate, as I was driving the thirteen turns stretch of Highway One on our way home and, again, we were late for something. “Yes we did it twice.”

Another thing that we have done twice is Walter directing me in a production reading. Many years ago I booked an evening studio session at KPFA Pacifica for the recording of Herman Hesse’s story “Old Music”. I was somehow committed and compelled to read this story. In hind-sight it was more suited to a male voice, but I so loved the story of Hesse’s journey from his cottage in the forest to the cathedral in the city that I was determined to do it and, for the first time, asked Walter to guide me thought the reading. I was nervous, hoping that we did not dissolve into an altercation in public. I need not have worried, Walter was professional and kind, gentle but firm and I relaxed as he led me through the story. We added some Bach, such as Hesse might have heard in the cathedral to the end of it and – even if I say so myself – it aired well.

A tidier picture of team Murch at work. Photo by Taghi Amirani

This summer we did it again. Mostly here in London, as Walter held my less-than-best microphone while correcting my still hopeless dyslexic stumbles over long words and names. My voice and I are old, and with no true acting training we worked in short bursts. Granny Smith apples or big juicy grapes are said to help with such sessions but for me it was to be hard apple cider and honey which got me through, and was more than appropriate given that we were recording my book ‘Harvesting History While Farming the Flats.’ I took two editorial passes though each chapter before handing the tracks over to beloved Jim Mckee who cleaned me up some more. The result is a 9 hour and 6 minute book on audible.com. There is a little teaser – in the video.

The video clip on my website is a little taste tease.

After my husband delivered a lecture to a group of Danish Film makers and students Philip calls out, “The last question please,” and a young man stands up.

“Mr. Murch, with your work schedule and the traveling how do you manage a home life?” then he sits down. Suddenly there is a deeper quiet in the room. Philip nods and raises his eyebrows, which always look striking with his large, round, smooth bald head. He nods as if to say, “yes this is a good question” and looks over at Walter. Walter paused, not rushing, as he can, to answer with overflowing ideas. Then he responded.

“Truth be told I don’t. I am often on a project for a year, maybe longer, sometimes eighteen months, even two years – and in that time I may not know where I will be six weeks ahead. You will have to ask Aggie that question.” He smiles and looks up briefly before Philip calls out, “Lunch. We will reconvene in an hour.”

This book is my answer

Through some digital magic you can also switch between reading on your Kindle and listening to the audio. Pretty cool for an old lady.

The summer is fading now, the harvests are in. The Gods in Heaven have swept up three American jewels who spread good news, and good trouble across this good earth. We who are left are saddened by their passing. I think of them, Dolly Parton, Wendell Berry and Gloria Steinem who have no need to linger – their work well done and their torchlight handed on to those of us who are finishing what we can of our work in the world.

And it is time to make chutney again. We harvested six green tomatoes from the one plant that survived the heatwaves of this summer. Our neighbor props a sign, ‘Free but don’t take them all’ on a box of Bramley Apples she brought from her home in the country. Tony at the market – he of the best and sweetest small strawberries – hands over a punnet of Victoria and Damson plums, Pete’s onions are small but good and into the big pot with all sorts of secrets they go. A day later there are nine jars filled with dark rich savory fruit sitting on the counter.

Nine jars of Chutney cooling on the counter.

I look at the jars and think of the words that Wendell Berry let me share in Harvesting History, and hope that even in this autumnal urban time of our lives we can remember that

The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life. – Quote from Wendell Berry with kind permission from Wendell Berry

This has been A Letter From. A Broad Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side and as always supported by Beatrice from MurchStudio. And the video? Taken by Taghi Amarani and then tucked up together by WSM

The Sun Also Rises

August 29, 2026 / aggiemurch / 3 Comments

Written and Read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side.

It must have been a break between films in the early 1980’s when we took a road trip in a camper van, fulfilling one of those American dreams which had so far escaped me.* By that summer the older girls were well on their way with wings fluttering out into the world. So from Big-4 rents we picked out a sleeps-four camper van. I stocked up for cooking-on-the-go and we set off for a week with Walter the Younger and Bea, driving South in the slow lane to Pinnacles and Death Valley where the climbs were hard, the ground rocky and the sun too hot. Death Valley was as grey and desolate as a graveyard. And there was no fishing. And to a rising teen boy the whole trip was becoming a mis-adventure, cramped up with his parents and young sister.

As we headed south we managed a change in attitude by slipping into smaller highways, giving him the driving seat and handing him the wheel along large sections of open road while we kept a nervous eye out for the highway patrol. A few days later we made it to the Grand Canyon National Park campgrounds and hooked into a spot. Hamburgers and corn with probably some serious ice cream brought us to an ‘Are we having fun now?’ evening before we tucked into sleeping bags for the brief night. It was still dark as Walter turned on the ignition, jolting us awake, and drove the camper to the parking lot at the rim of the Grand Canyon. There were more than a dozen empty cars and vans parked along side us as small clusters of people, wrapped up in puffer jackets and hats, stood at the canyon’s rim with cameras and binoculars on hand easily sharing with those who were without. We were all gathered here, in the darkness, to see the sun rise over the canyon rim. There was a quiet stillness before the dark sky lightened, pouring purple from the sky that steadily flowed into orange as the sun rose to display the canyons’ rocks and rivers palette, cream through deep brown, sweeping across the canyon.

How long does a sunrise last – in our memories? Back in the camper van I banged open a tube of Pillsbury ‘just heat and serve’ cinnamon rolls and soon the smell of fresh baking – in its fashion – wafted over the parking lot. Our little camper was passed with serious envy as, now that dawn had turned to day with the heat that followed, families drove off to their next adventure while we lingered over breakfast in that parking lot before we too packed up and went on. What did our children take from that adventure? It was rarely spoken of as a memorable time but something must have held, as Walter The Younger continues to reach towards the mountains and wilderness and this summer, Beatrice and her family traveled to Valencia in Spain, where, with temperatures rising beyond 100 degrees, they stood with strangers to watch the total eclipse of the sun.

Total eclipse of the sun in Valencia Spain. Photo by Beatrice Murch

On August 12th we too climbed a little way’s up Primrose Hill in London to watch the skies dim – as if a god was troubled. There were thousands of people on that hillside, and there were thousands beyond thousands in the Western European hemisphere also looking to the sky and, for this moment, unaided by our interference, stilled by the universe turning. The park ground was rock-hard and while I tried this way and that to get comfortable, Walter walked around and around, absorbing the crowds, following the sun as it slid around the hill and the moon glided forward on its path. A quiet roar went up at 12 minutes past 7 p.m. when, in other parts of the world, the moon completely overtook the sun. Before we lit up the sky with electric lights beaming from one continent to another – the eclipse would only be viewed in totality where that occurred – and wondered at by astronomers who followed the skies. As we made out way back home, most people lingered on the hill until dusk merged with moonlight for the night.

The Sun preparing – behind the trees in Primrose Hill Photo by MAM

Nightly the news shows us the wars raged far away around the world and I fear for friends that are engaged, close in their fields of endeavor, and whom we love. The firestorms of war churn with this summer’s fires that have galloped through Europe alongside the furnaces in America and Canada. The summer has been long and hard. We retreat to the cottage, subdued by the evening dance between the sun and the moon, wondering at the worth of our work. But today, through another familial gift, we can brew a cup of Canadian tea signaling to the world that while making sure ‘Our Elbows Are Up’ we continue to bow over the page and write.

Murchie’s Tea and Coffee from Victoria Canada Photo by MAM

This has been A Letter From. A Broad Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side and as always supported by Beatrice from MurchStudio

*In actuality my daughter tells me she very fondly remembers this rare family vacation and that it was spring break in 1986.

Happy Birthday Sir David and KMWR.org

May 8, 2026May 10, 2026 / aggiemurch

Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side.

Today – May 8th – Sir David Attenborough celebrates his one hundredth birthday. While he was thinking it would be quiet affair, England is having none of that and a big celebration of his life’s work will be held at The Royal Albert Hall tonight. Sir David recorded a brief audio message saying how touched he is by the loving appreciation that is being shown to him around the world.

In one of the images shared on the Royal Family’s Instagram account, Sir David introduced Cocky, the cockatoo to Prince Charles with his sister Princess Anne in 1958

In these weeks I am recording ‘Harvesting History While Farming the Flats’ to be released as an audio book later this year.

And May is also the birthday month for KWMR.org radio. And as I turn the pages of Harvesting I find this on page 197…

In 1995 Walter is happily in Rome. He is part of a multi-national production team and has an editing crew of English and Italians whom he loves dearly, and a project, The English Patient, that will prove challenging. We are not sure how long we will be apart. He will be engrossed in the work with his team and I am caught with the excitement of birthing a new community radio station. And while still a part of the KPFA-FM Drama and Literature Department, I am also gleaning programs for our new small, tiny-at-the-moment station-that-could. Next up in the studio is Sir David Attenborough with his new book, ‘The Private Life of Plants’. I’m more than on home ground and the book is a breeze for me. Sir David is a good old pro.

‘The Private Life of Plants’ appears almost a knockoff for him, a quick fill-in between bigger projects with which to keep him busy. Sir David is still cresting his prime, always on the go, happily absorbed in his passion. I know the type. I think he finds me a bit of a relief as he travels around North America answering the same questions with unflinching enthusiasm. We meet in the lobby of KPFA and neither of us needs much prep time. After introducing myself, congratulating him on another fine piece of work I add, “I’m going to work you rather hard.” And explain about our tiny new radio station now beginning in West Marin. “Think of it like BBC Wales.” “Oh, not Wales my dear. Please not Wales.” And we laugh our way into the recording studio.

It is an easy conversation and, as always, his enthusiasm for his life’s work overflows into his charm, which allows his knowledge to fall gently from him to his audience. After reading the book, even as we talk, I learn more: blackberry vines, Rubus rosaceae, can grow an inch a day; fireweed, Chamaenerion angustifolium is so called as it is the first plant to emerge from the forest floor after a fire; a bright and soothing balm for the regrowth of a forest. How little did we know that day how that tiny piece of knowledge would bring hope and comfort to the residents of Inverness, West Marin and beyond. The conversation was a delight and remains a joyous memory for me, even as I accept that for Sir David I was just one more appointment done and dusted.

Happy Birthday Sir David and Happy Birthday KWMR.org.

This has been A Letter From. A Broad Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side and as always supported by Beatrice from MurchStudio

The Holiday Season

December 28, 2025 / aggiemurch / 1 Comment

The card table is balanced on the old coffee table – giving us a square surface on which to play. The fire is on, we are warm. Crumbs from the Dundee cake land on the table and the cards and we brush them to the floor. There are two egg cups perched on the corners of the table. They each hold an ounce of Jameson Whisky. We are poor drinkers and card sharks. But we will play Machiavelli to the death.

The rain has been falling steadily all week but the wind is quiet, not ready to push the rain or us around. The roadsides are splashed with yellow. Some call the big loose bushes Mexican Marigolds but they look almost Indian in their brightness. There is another swatch of yellow and green along the roadside – a succulent who is claiming this climate as its own. Three times I have seen rhododendrons pushing purple and crimson buds into the New Year. No one can tell them to stop.

A member of the Ukrainian military rides on top of an armored fighting vehicle. Ukrainian Ground Forces/Handout/Reuters

And no-one can tell the soldiers to stop either.

While the news reporters focus on Christmas lights, spontaneous angry killings alternating with acts of kindnesses they have withdrawn from the horrors that continue in Gaza, The Sudan and Ukraine to name just those we have carried through this last year. Now the Unites States President has turned his watery unfocused eyes on Venezuela with its oil. He is trying for a replay of the British taking over the Iranian oil fields in the 1950s. Someone must have been watching Taghi Amirani’s film Coup 53 and suggested that America could have another crack at this kind of takeover. We are blinded in the headlamps of this US government administration’s decisions that come tumbling out of the revolving side door of The White House. Last week, off-shore energy windmills were cancelled and more American jobs were lost. In Kentucky the Japanese-owned Jim Beam bourbon whiskey company will halt production at its main site for all of 2026. Halt – not yet close down – but still there are more American jobs lost, families that will go hungry, get sick and even die because of the government tariffs that effect all American industries. This week came the recalling of career ambassadors from around the world. They are to be replaced with new ‘loyal diplomats’ to the agenda of this administration over and above that of the American people. That is a strange sentence to write but becoming more true with every decision coming through the revolving door. First out the door – or into the ring – is the special envoy sent to Greenland to place it ‘under US control.’

With trade and educational wheeling and dealing Sir Keir Starmer is clawing Britain’s way back closer to Europe in a desperate bid for some safety. While Europe has promised Ukraine 90 billion Euros in funds to continue the war with Russia, alliances need to be stronger as Europe faces off openly with Russia and the US putting in place loyal – to the president – diplomats.

It is the Christmas Holiday and in Northern California it is raining steadily, the water soaking into the dry ground making mud, rivulets and drawing nourishment from the soil to turn the hills a deeper, richer green. A Loveliness of Ladybugs has come inside our hayloft home. They crash into the paper lanterns and settle on the window ledges waiting for this storm to be over but the rain continues to fall. Outside the sheep seem not to care, though the chickens return to their pens to wait the weather out. I go into the vegetable garden and hunt for sorrel. The first starter was given to me by a tough midwestern pal of Northern European decent. The sorrel, with a deep tap root is tough too, and thrives with total neglect though the year. It drinks up the rain and now the leaves are ready for my harvest. Sorrel leaves, a potato, maybe a leek and there is soup to warm the family this winter week. At this time of the year, in all our traditions, for a brief time we close our minds to the outside world to focus on our families and yet I cannot but picture the grandmothers in the Ukrainian countryside searching their small patch of land for some sorrel, a potato and maybe a leek. I hope that they can find them.

This has been A Letter From. A Broad Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side and as always supported by Beatrice from MurchStudio

Thank you Jesus

December 15, 2025 / aggiemurch

Written and recorded by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side

‘Use a Wheelchair’ enough friends and family said that, that it became another ‘if three Russians tell you you are drunk you might want to lie down’ moments. And so, feeling immensely foolish and embarrassed, I did. And each wheelchair led to another brief encounter of sweetness. First up there was Chris at EuroStar. “It’s your lucky day, I’m with you all the way.” And he was – and he easily took on more than just us. Chris was watchful and would spot others who seemed lost and as if they needed more help and guidance. For them too he would quickly point out their way forward.

Feeling foolish in Amsterdam. Photo by BL Murch

It took only a few hours before we were safely tucked into our daughter’s home in Utrecht. The little overnight case holding Beano comics and Cheddar cheese along with the toothbrush was unpacked and we settled into the now ritual Sushi takeout supper the family orders for our first night with them. The Dutch, along with the rest of Europe and the world, do not celebrate the American Thanksgiving holiday, though a different form of Thanksgiving from America may eventually come to pass. A Thanksgiving to be free of the yanked choke-hold that is oozing out of the United States. As I write, motions are being written and presented to the senate that American citizens may not hold more than one passport and visitors to the United States should show five years of email correspondence and social media activity. There goes the United States airline industry for a start.

This little family holds all its traditions dear, those from Argentina and those from America. Assados and barbecues, soccer and football alike and so that weekend the Thanksgiving meal was a lunch on Saturday. Swedish friends with their two children and an American couple who had just recently moved from Ireland to the Netherlands gathered around the table. My Granny jobs had me thinking back to Mudda, my oldest friend’s grandmother, sitting at her daughter’s kitchen table, slicing beans. She would slip me half-a-crown with instructions to bicycle down to the tuck shop at the end of the road and pick up a packet of Craven A cigarettes for her. There would be sixpence left over which she would slip back in my pocket to buy sweets for us later. During those childhood years Mudda fed me my first cigarette. As I took my Granny place with the beans I felt quite virtuous, knowing I had only given David comics. It felt good to sit at the table topping and tailing green beans before peeling the potatoes.

Saturday’s meal was fabulous as was the company. Beatrice has mastered mashed potatoes like I never could. The beans were served with a shallot and balsamic dressing and the turkey – well of course it was perfect – and then there were pies.

Pumpkin Pecan and Apple Pie. Thank you Beatrice.

The conversations flowed over and across Kim’s Game – another Thanksgiving tradition Bea had brought forward from her childhood when we joined friends in Inverness. Animated talks continued until someone picked up the brochure that had been mailed to every household in the Netherlands that weekend. The cover was eye-catching purple and the cartoon figures stood out in relief, as through the pages they showed what to do in case of a drone attack. No enemy was mentioned but the recent Russian drones flying into the airspace of the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Estonia, Sweden, as well as Ukraine leaves the whole of Europe nervous and jittery – which is just the fun of it for the Russian President. As winter sets in to Northern Europe another country’s president, too far out of reach for those drones, tosses off instructions and memos to President Zelensky. While Ukraine’s President repeats that he will not cede any territories to Russia the infantry troops must hold the ever-increasingly dangerous line while under such constant attacks.

On Sunday our bags were packed in the car and we left Amsterdam for an overnight in Dublin before flying back to California. Both the Irish attendants, for those in need of assistance, in and out of Dublin Airport, were so young and had perfect capped white and even teeth – and I wondered – why. I couldn’t help thinking that once – like young race horses – they had been promising young boxers and that maybe injury had set them aside to languish and grow bald working for Air Dublin at the airport. The tips could be good and it is almost healthy work with all the walking and maybe a better life than working in construction or the restaurant trades.

Flying our bodies 6000 miles across land, sea and any remaining snow-capped mountains leaves them shaking and in turmoil. For the first few nights back in the Hayloft there is a strong full moon over the lagoon and farm. Dawn has barely broken as I lie awake and look out of the glass doors to the fields beyond. The tall eucalyptus trees are only just outlined against the sky. A faint light flickers up and down as a small converted golf cart is driven slowly along the rows of vegetables growing in the fields beyond. The light bobs and then pauses for some minutes before carrying on along the row. The cart is idled and I imagine the Jesuses and Josés of the world wearing thick jackets and pulled-down caps over stained jeans climbing down, knives in hand as they each pull an empty crate from the back of the golf cart before bending down and harvesting from another row of chard. The work and rhythm is repeated as the dawn lightens until the cart is full and they return to the office and waiting truck ready to accept these gifts. For this harvest, working though it is, is a gift to us all. I watch the bobbing light, the dawn rising and even with some early morning kisses I do not fall back to sleep. I must honor the work of Jesus and José with my words – and I do.

Workers mannually harvest ripe produce on Rick and Robyn Purdum’s farm. Fruitland, Idaho. 7/20/2012 Photo by Kirsten Strough via USDA

This has been A Letter From. A Broad Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side and as always supported by Beatrice from MurchStudio

Board Games

December 1, 2025 / aggiemurch / 1 Comment

Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side.

A blast of cold weather pressure from the Atlantic swept in November and sent the temperature below freezing. There were snow drifts in the Scottish Highlands, sending trucks and traffic of all sorts off the roads. The snow swirled down over the Pennines, into the West Country and the Home Counties.

“It’s a winter morning,” I said and moments later the snow began to fall in our corner of London. It didn’t lay on the ground but just shook some warning flurries at the city, ‘Be careful’ the full clouds seemed to say. ‘We are just up the road, out of the bright lights that heat your city, but we could stay here if we chose to.’ Our little bird bath froze over and the remaining plants on the terrace did not move, as if afraid they might crack in the cold. November’s hit was just the forerunner of December’s offerings. These are winter days, errands are done quickly before we come home, almost grateful to have to stay indoors and rummage in the cupboards. These are days for soup and to bring out the boardgames to play with families as the American Thanksgiving holiday reaches us wherever we are. And we will be in Utrecht with that little family for the weekend of Cluedo and gratitude.

Can you guess correctly – Clue or Cluedo? (Photo by Beatrice Murch)

But board games of a far more serious nature are being invented and played in Geneva. The Presidents of America and Russia are staying out of the fray, lobbing spit balls of scrunched old ideas across telephone lines as their hatchet men of the moment re-write the rules of this game. The Ukrainian President keeps Europe and the rest of the world focused with repeated stark reminders of the underlying truth of this conflict, rejecting Putin’s demands for “legal recognition to what he has stolen”. So the chess board – if it is a chess game – remains open – leaving the bishops and knights to battle in the castle while the pawns fall and fail to return. Rules are being made up as this game unfolds. Scrappy bits of paper with early notes are tapped out on keyboards and folded into the games with the first language of the rules appearing in Russian then transcribed into American. All of Europe see this is an uneven match with the French President Macron clear that without deterrence in the Ukraine plan, ‘Russia will come back’. The first blue print was not so much who did what to whom but who gets to take this land and who has to give it up and forfeit its army, land and alliances. Its a crippling squeeze and is played out for real as ruthlessly as any child takes over Mayfair or Park Avenue on the Monopoly board. As I write, there are moves and counter-moves reported with the US and Ukraine continuing to create an “updated and refined peace framework” to end the war while the European countries proposed their own radical alternatives. Thanksgiving and Christmas will come and go before the drone-dropped bombs cease to fall on The Ukraine. The American President is practicing his TACO moves tweeting that ‘Great progress is being made’ while the Russian one lowers his bear head and continues to charge, bombing civilian targets in the Ukraine.

Monopoly Money (photo by Beatrice Murch)

While Europe carries much of the financial burden of Ukraine’s continued resistance the US can’t find the keys to its conscience and continues to hold back resources. It seems that papa Putin still has a firm hand grasped around the collar of that naughty US president. But every time when we watch this three-party card trick, we miss where it has gone. Who holds the cards as Russia the United States and Europe play, moving the ace that is the Ukraine with its oil and wheat. President Zelensky repeats for anyone who needs to hear it again that “The crux of the entire diplomatic situation is that it was Russia, and only Russia, that started this war, and it is Russia, and only Russia, that has been refusing to end it.” We learn all we can each day while at the same time knowing that bombing has not stopped in any of the squabbles and wars around the world.

A map of the Ukraine with Russian infiltration

It is pear season. There are fresh pears in the market and the ones I chose from the grocer are the perfect ripeness for today’s desert of poached pears in wine with cardamon and saffron. I sit at the table peeling them and two have long stalks – so long that I can imagine them just plucked from the tree as the twig with leaves say goodbye.

Ten years ago we bought a Living Christmas tree for a Christmas here in The Cottage. And then – as one tries to do after Christmas – we planted it out in a little corner of the pavement at the end of the parking lot and to our amazement it took hold, the roots going down and finding hidden nourishment, reminding us all that London – like every city – is only as deep as a cement paving stone.

On Sunday, we went out again and put lights and cheap shiny ornaments on it – and it is happy. As the nights begin to close in by tea time the little tree shines, bringing a smile to every passerby.

This has been A Letter From. A Broad Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side and as always supported by Beatrice from MurchStudio

Hippocampus Magazine

November 18, 2025November 18, 2025 / aggiemurch / 1 Comment

INTERVIEW by Leslie Lindsay: Muriel A Murch, Author of Harvesting History While Farming the Flats

Today, while perusing the riverwalk art festival in my town, I wandered into an artist’s booth filled with pieces inspired by nature. Barns and fields. Dirt roads, orchards. The artist was a self-taught electrician who decided he needed something ‘more,’ something other than being a nameless employee. He had a handful of business cards, each contained a glossy image of one of his many works. I was drawn to the one of a farmhouse and barn, a pastoral scene. Maybe that’s because I live outside Chicago, in a town that has grown into a burgeoning suburbia, but is dotted with the occasional farmhouse and barn. I regret I didn’t purchase his art, but my walls are full.

This is something I think Muriel A. Murch would appreciate, the merging of art with nature, complex with simple. Just because it’s ‘simple,’ though, does not mean it’s ‘easy.’ Weaving together Hollywood and agriculture, her upbringing in England, she chronicles food, family, farming, and friendship in such a way that feels not just full of life, but artful and poetic.

Organized in thirteen chapters with subheadings, plus a robust photo section at the end of the book, Harvesting History While Farming the Flats (Sybilline Digital First; March 2025), is a gorgeous, thoughtful book inside and out. A former nurse-midwife, Murch writes about her love of land, community, organic farming, the independent film scene, and so much more, it’s all juxtaposed by the sometimes troubling movement of urban development and Hollywood, which is anything but uncomplicated.

As I reach back to my own ancestral roots, I was so moved by Murch’s opening lines:

“Migration, moving away from one home to another, is sometimes voluntary, and sometimes forced. Quite often, we don’t know where home is until we are there.”

This was something I identified with. My ancestral family hails from the rolling hills of Kentucky, where they’ve farmed for well over two-hundred years. I feel a deep connection to the land, but also: beauty, hard work, and simplicity.

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Kitchen Sisters

November 18, 2025November 18, 2025 / aggiemurch

Aggie & Walter Murch — Family, Farming & Filmmaking

Kitchen Sisters Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva have produced a beautiful love letter to and about Muriel and Walter Murch on their show. This podcast is based off of their interview in the summer of 2025 via City Lights Books and a tour the archives in Dr Worley’s “office” at Blackberry Farm. Have a listen and subscribe to their show to keep up-to-date with their incredible work.

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Muriel “Aggie” Murch and her husband, Academy Award winning film editor and sound designer Walter Murch, have lived on Blackberry Farm in Bolinas for some five decades, along with their children, chickens, and horses. The two just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.

They both have newly published books, and are out on the circuit telling their stories that stand at the intersection of the organic farming movement and the independent filmmaking movement of the 1970’s.

Director Francis Coppola, Walter’s longtime collaborator, describes his new book, Suddenly Something Clicked, as “a vast encyclopedia of cinema and everything that can be touched by it.”

Director Phillip Kaufman said this about Harvesting History While Farming the Flats: “Blackberry Farm is Aggie Murch’s Walden Pond. She made existence sustainable, rebuilt life over and over, helped spirits enter the world and gently helped them leave. She’s got the gift.”

We have known and admired the Murches for some four decades and asked if we might do a story to celebrate this moment of love and publishing and graciously they said yes.

Produced by The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva, in collaboration with Nathan Dalton, Brandi Howell and Hannah Kaye. Mixed by Jim McKee.

Special Thanks to City Lights Bookstore and Peter Maravelis.

Funding for our stories comes from listener contributions to The Kitchen Sisters Productions, The Robert Sillins Family Foundation, The Every Page Foundation, The Susie Tompkins Buell Foundation, The Buenas Obras Fund, The TRA Fund, Barbara & Howard Wollner, Michael Pollan & Judith Belzer, Bonnie Raitt, and you.

Our deep thanks to our community for your spirit and for supporting the stories.

The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent podcasts that widen your world.

Decisions

November 17, 2025 / aggiemurch / 2 Comments

Decisions,

Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side

It started with relentless knee pain that would not go away and it was time to see a doctor. Mr. Mazin Ibrahim took one look at my walking and, with experienced confidence, says. “It’s not your knee. It’s your hip, it’s completely worn away and here are the X-rays to prove it.”

It was a slow dance, back and forth, a cortisone injection to the hip, an appointment with a fantastic physical therapist, another determination to lose weight, and for a month or two the cortisone worked – until it didn’t. The pain returned and with it the realization that it was time for ‘The Decision.’ As I begin the emails, phone calls the explanation of schedule, the booking, the payments and the appointments, I have to accept I am on the other side of the nursing desk. Each time I said “I am a nurse too” I can see my nurse dance partners take a deep breath and guide me to their agenda. As Mibaba, the diminutive Philippine nurse, goes through the detailed admission her voice lifts with a musical “Mam” at the end of each question. Before she is finished, she is asking for a full report from my cardiologist. There is no stone this young woman left unturned. Eventually satisfied, she leads me along the corridor where I see a pair of leather-shod feet which I know, just by the way they are pointed, belong on the end of long legs. Mibaba introduces me to Desmond, from Essex and Uganda. He is tall and, as an orthopedic specialist nurse should be, light on his feet. He has seen it all before and fielding my “I’m a nurse too,” slipping into the nurses’ banter and humor. He is laughingly professional with deep knowledge and warmth and we exchange phone numbers.

It’s a 7 a.m start as we arrive at the brightly lit entrance to the Princess Grace Hospital. A cheery Scottish receptionist checks me in, all my paperwork and payment is in order. In the reception area we are joined by other couples. One by one, we are picked up by out admitting nurses and taken to our own private rooms to change… Walter helps me settle in, and himself to the waiting ahead.

And it is in. That seems to be a real screw in there!

Two attendants come with a gurney and I am slipped onto it. The basement is where the action is, the corridor so narrow that there is only room for one gurney at a time – one in, one out. The door to the surgical suite is open and two men are still mopping the floor as we wheel on past them to a blunt-nosed tiny tool shed. There is just room for the gurney to slide in, with the tool benches all around. “Anesthesiologist” He shouts at me through his mask while pointing to the words on his cap. There are two of them, both Indian, both male, doctor and nurse, a team dancing together as they prepare their next patient for the umpteenth time. Sit up, legs over the edge of the gurney and, cradled in the safe arms of the young nurse who holds me as the anesthesiologist calls out, “Don’t move. Be still”. Now this gurney is wheeled into the newly cleaned and mopped surgical suite. There are fresh big blue containers of sterile equipment, the all-male team also clothed in blue, among them is my surgeon, ready to help hoist me from the gurney onto his table. ‘Wait” I want to say, “I haven’t lost enough weight.” Then an oxygen mask covers my nose and mouth and I’m out.

Back in room 312, Walter is waiting. He sits quietly, watching over us all as I look at my numb legs in my big diaper, “better than a catheter” and I have to agree while watching and participating in the incredible disposable waste that clogs our planet. Day moves to night and back to day. Walter walks across the park from home to hospital and back again. Nurses and therapists, their voices blending in a symphony of all those who make up the serving faces of England today, come and go. Dawn is late while, carefully watched, I get up to the bathroom and wash before a reasonable pot of tea shows up at 7.30 with breakfast. My bladder is working unaided – for which I am truly grateful. As a liquid laxative is washed down with an oral suspension of Morphine I am dimly aware that they might not be the best of dance partners. It is not until the next day when Saturday’s supper returns with a vengeance that everyone gets serious about those absent bowel sounds and my discharge is postponed.

The physical therapist pops in to tackle up and down stairs, and so we go up and down the stairs with no problem until the last dose of morphine kicks in and I slide into a chair. Well if this is a way to change this dimension for the next – it’s fine with me.

Then home, bags of drugs, wise unheeded words from the nurses ‘Don’t let the pain get ahead of you’. And I leave the safety of their care. The world of nurses, these are the voices I want to hear. Melodious, musical and on the brink of laughter if you are someone who would let that in.

Back at home there is warmth by the fire, a kind and willing helper for all things, those exercises to be done and the pain iced away. Walter is ever-vigilant as friends come bearing meals. With such care it takes only a few days to accept that this was the right decision and I am going to get better.

October chilled into November and there are distractions. November 4th was an election day in North America. There were celebrations from New York as Zohran Mamdani is voted to be the new Mayor, redistricting passes in California, and governorships going to Democrats Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey. All this on the night before we sit together watching the fireworks from the remembrance of Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. The King and Crown also chose this time to banish Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, to the dark forest of Norfolk. From the depth of next January he will call a corner of the 20,000 acre Sandringham Estate home. It is time to start sorting books from bookshelves and suits from his wardrobe.

While I write, the United States President has risen up from 20,000 leagues under the sea and murky waters of the Eastern Seaboard. Not content to wave his tentacles across the American media, crushing those who displease him he has, in a circular sweep with his pal Benjamin, now focused on the BBC. Searching for a hook which which to snare this big fish they have found a questionable editorial choice from an October 28th Panorama Program last year about the US President.

The hook is tightly embedded, heads have rolled, and the mighty organization is left rudderless with no captain or first-mate to hold the ship steady. Another decision is to be made, apologize or stand firm, or even let the Government make this decision for them. Pontus Pilate did not have it any easier.

This has been A Letter From. A Broad Written and read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side and as always supported by Beatrice from MurchStudio