I’m trying to find words for the images on my newsfeed of the mob of hate-shackled bullies darkening the streets of Charlottesville, VA, this weekend. Nauseating. Terrifying. Hellish. Infuriating. Convicting… Not because I’ve ever agreed with any of the poisonous, white supremacist garbage they stand for. But because the root of their sin and mine […]
We sat with our friends exactly two weeks after they buried their firstborn son. Baby Ollie’s bouncy seat was empty by my feet as we looked through pictures of his gorgeous almond eyes and rose petal lips, and his daddy told stories about the two days they were face to face with him. Ollie’s daddy
Our friends suddenly lost their beautiful baby boy this morning. Just two days old. Big, with lots of hair, they said. We were going to make the trip to Indiana to meet him next month. My eyes are red and swollen. I can only imagine what theirs are like. And somehow the sun still makes
The stones were cool under my shoeless feet as I took my first step into the labyrinth, Oregon trees leaning in all around like giants protecting the silence of their clifftop sanctuary. I could see the center of the circle just feet away, but the path that ran inward turned quickly out to the very
My house is staring at me. A betrayed kind of look that says, “Seriously. What have you done?” At least that’s how it feels after our family’s week-long bout with a horrible flu, followed immediately by an unexpected mid-March snow day. Muddy foot and paw tracks in the foyer and kitchen, pillows and blankets and
I just turned forty, and it feels like a deep sigh. There’s something about beginning a new decade that hits a reset button. My thirties were a time of gathering – living new experiences, picking up pieces here and there to build a life and make a home for my family, taking hold of my
We drove home from Ohio the other night. The air smelled like winter, and strings of lights hung like halos around picture perfect houses, but there was something not right hanging low on the western horizon. Smoke. There are these places burning in the Appalachians. Memories and plans burning to the ground, and the hungry
My friend Trudie just got a huge double stroller. Like the kind that might take up the majority of an elevator. Which is exactly what happened a couple weeks ago at a local science museum. My husband and two girls got in first, followed by Trudie’s three-year-old, and then Trudie with her baby and stroller.
My five-year-old daughter leaned against my pillow, a rainbow of gel pens spread out on the bed around her. Her face was all concentration as she added vibrant life to the black and white outlines of a flower. “Mom?” “Yeah, babe?” I folded another dress and added it to the box that will store my
I write like I breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Pull thoughts into the core of me, let them saturate, then push them out as words. It’s less a pastime and more a necessary function of life. Sometimes, though, the thoughts and emotions flow wild and the framework of words doesn’t hold them. They pour out like water,