A Smyrna, Tennessee, native, Peggy paints, writes and teaches. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from Lipscomb University and the University of Kentucky. She is currently teaching classes for the Tennessee Regents Online Degree Program and is the author of Your Killin’ Heart published by Thomas Dunne Books/Minotaur

Sometimes it’s escape; sometimes it’s wishful thinking. Sometimes it’s an image or feeling to recapture, reinterpret, rediscover. Crossing the Lower Lake to Ross Castle on a soft day, my dad’s fingers strumming a Lefty Frizzell song, a blossom that fell. The way the light, just for an instant, hits water or a sail or a brass compass or a stone. Color. Texture. It’s all light and dark.