Dina L. Relles

writer. editor. curious + common.

I found myself on a flight to California the other day to visit family. As we boarded the aircraft, touching our fingertips to the fuselage, these could be my last steps on earth, I think, and then again as we slowly taxi down the runway, these, my last moments in life. Morbid, maybe, but I …

Continue reading

As the upcoming writing retreat steadily approaches, I’m preoccupied with the drive to get there—the ride alone, time on the open road, snaking New England highway, cloaked in winter. Just me, my radio music, my thoughts. That’s only the beginning, but much as I strain, I struggle to see beyond that. What I know is that seven women from …

Continue reading

Happy New Year. I love New Year’s, as I love early mornings. For its promise and possibility. For its quiet reflection. For its gift of a blank slate. But I also love it for being a secular holiday we can all enjoy. For inspiring a common greeting we exchange on days like this when we allow our eyes to meet …

Continue reading

Before any trip, break, vacation, I feel uneasy and unsettled. On edge. I am, after all, a lover of the ordinary day. A creature of habit. A homebody steeped in ritual and routine. Now I’m sitting in the space of a sleepless night. Working through it with words. As the distance widens between home and away, …

Continue reading

One year. It’s been nearly one year since I began this blog. Since I started writing regularly. And I’m sitting here in disbelief. That it’s been a full year. That it’s been only a year. Time is funny that way. When I set out a mere several hundred days ago, I never could have known …

Continue reading