Category: mindfulness

• OUR URBAN OASIS

  

  A Place of Calm in the Middle of Chaos We live on the southeast side of Tallahassee, but when we drive a mile from our home to a city park, it’s hard to believe we’re so close to an urban area with a population of 200,000. We call it Piney Z after the name of…

  P. C. Zick

  August 12, 2025

  environment, Life in the United States, mindfulness, Ramblings of a Writer, travel, wildlife

  camping, Florida, Florida environment, hiking, kayaking, natural Florida, nature, outdoors, Tallahassee, travel

• NEVER IGNORE A “LITTLE OLD LADY IN TENNIS SHOES”

  

  By P.C. Zick – @pczick.bsky.social “I’m just a little old lady in tennis shoes.” So said Margaret Hames when other more glowing titles followed her name. Environmentalist, conservationist, defender of wetlands, scrubs, and hammocks, and savior of public places in Brevard County, Florida, are more accurate descriptions of this “force of nature,” her daughter, Pat Baxter,…

  P. C. Zick

  July 29, 2025

  Books by P. C. Zick, environment, Environmental Concerns, Life in the United States, mindfulness, Ramblings of a Writer, Trails in the Sand, wildlife

  Brevard County, Enchanted Forest, Florida environment, Florida fiction, Manhattan Project, Margaret Hames Nature Center, native plants, Turkey Creek Sanctuary Preserve

• Lights in the Darkness

  I recently spent an unforgettable afternoon at a book reading for Lights in the Darkness, a book of essays from sixteen nonspeaking authors. Listening to the words from the minds of these young people who could finally be heard after years of not being able to communicate moved me to tears and opened a whole…

  P. C. Zick

  May 13, 2025

  mindfulness, Ramblings of a Writer

  anthology, autism, autistic, book review, brain science, collection of essays, neurodivergent, neurotypical, nonfiction essays, nonspeakers, spectrum, spellers

• FOR THE LOVE OF SEA TURTLES

  

  I’ve long had a love affair with sea turtles. It might have started when I learned the amazing life history of this species. It only grew after my experience first as a volunteer member of a sea turtle patrol on Matanzas Beach, Florida, twenty years ago. Then fifteen years ago, I was a part of…

  P. C. Zick

  April 1, 2025

  environment, Environmental Concerns, Life in the United States, mindfulness, Ramblings of a Writer, Trails in the Sand, wildlife

  Deepwater Horizon oil spill, endangered species, Florida beaches, Florida environment, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, hatchlings, life history sea turtles, loggerhead, saving sea turtles, sea turtle nests, sea turtles, Trails in the Sand

• Can’t See the President for the Beer

  Jimmy Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his humanitarian work around the world. On a trip through Georgia late that year, we decided to make a detour through Plains, Georgia, to see the small town where President Carter and his wife still lived. My travel companion–my now ex-husband–and I entered the small…

  P. C. Zick

  February 20, 2023

  mindfulness, Style and Grace

  Georgia, Habitat for Humanity, Jimmy Carter, mindfulness, Nobel Peace Prize, Plains, President