Martha Louise's Blog

I sat at my breakfast table and wrote for one solid hour immediately after my husband walked out of our home. I continued to take notes in an effort to analyze my marriage, comprehend our separation along with the pending divorce, and understand his addictive behavior. I was abruptly halted when I was faced with another tragic event ten months later.

My writing continued in full force during the next couple of years. I penned most of my words in an old, gray cabin while seated at a worn, stained, oak table settled in the middle of a sparse kitchen anterior to a screened-in porch. The kitchen windows and the porch screen provided the lens through which my eyes could gaze upon the tranquil view of the Arkansas River Valley, as it lay at the foot of the mountain and fanned out to the eastern horizon. I sat for many hours at that kitchen table in the rustic cabin that belonged to my husband’s family–the cabin is perched on the top edge of his beloved Mount Nebo.

I am convinced that I could not have recovered and reached peace had I not let my thoughts and emotions run down my arm into the pen and onto the paper. Married to Merlot: A Memoir With a Message of Hope --January 3, 2019