When my husband and I sold our first home, I was excited. I had enough HGTV shows in me to be able to declutter and depersonalize my house, all while still making it feel warm and inviting. Our realtor was so impressed she took pictures to show future clients. The next time we put a […]
Living in the Boring Chapter
It seems to me that most people live semi-ordinary lives with straightforward paths. You graduate from elementary school to middle school to high school to college and then you start working. My life has often consisted of jumping headfirst into a random major change, freaking out because it was harder than I expected, finally acclimating […]
Recycled
“White woman, why water full of sorrow flow from face?” The young woman’s Chenglish needed no translation and neither did my tears as she poured rosewater into a wooden bucket to soak my feet. She was wearing a Louis Vuitton jacket, sequined sweater and rice hat: a fashion style as common in Kunming, China as […]
The Delicate Task
I watched his hands, a gentle blend of weary Each line, earned, every callous worn like a medal of honor The request, brave and earnest His response breathed through his fingertips, whispers waft and billow Through the labor of his hands His yes, a gift of patient, steady love I look away, the chore […]
Wedged
I never thought I’d still be breathing at 45, painted skulls on tiny coffins to distract my broken mind. But now I’ve tasted worth and felt confidence creeping up my spine. I know you had a lot of problems, always told me you were trying. And I have felt deep purple blood flow from your […]
The Tantrum Days
Friends, can I tell you a secret? Being a mother has been one of the most exhilarating, joy-filled experiences of my life . . . but it also has been the most heart-wrenching, confusing, frustrating thing. Some moments are wonderful, bliss-filled snapshots of this blessed life I live. Some moments I hope to always remember. […]
Same Leaf, New Perspective
I desperately want to make a clean break from it. For more years than I can remember it’s taken up camp in the pit of my stomach and invaded my mind like a Philistine army with a Goliath heading the charge. It’s followed me around, rocked me violently to sleep, crawled, slithered, sunk into my […]
What I Didn’t Resolve in January
January is often a time of change. For me, it’s when I realize that my mid-February birthday is coming. One January, I broke up with a boyfriend, unwilling to continue in that unhealthy relationship as I approached a quarter of a century. This January, I quit my job. I’ve been hearing the whispers for a […]
Lessons from My Best Friend Leaving
Today my best friend left. She loaded her things into her SUV and began a 25-hour journey away to join her soon-to-be husband in Colorado. We’ve been close friends for about three years, feeling like the only grown single women in our small town. Together we’ve weathered the storms of shared tears and laughter about […]
Breakaway Rising
I was fiercely fighting in forcing myself to stay. To be the “bigger person” and rise to the occasion. But after nine months, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I had to break free. And I was terrified it would be anything but a clean break. Tears flowed by the buckets that weekend, all because […]
A Clean Break from Technology
The thought came to me in Rome, sitting on a small balcony overlooking the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. The shell windchimes hanging just inside the window of the apartment we’d rented for a few days were tinkling on a soft breeze carrying the peal of church bells from across the Eternal City. There were […]
Leaving Home and the Geographies of our Days
Every time we leave, I always hope for a clean break, where you wince but then rip off the band-aid and you’re okay. Where the pain is quick but then fades, and soon, you’re just left with a scab. Or I hope that if the pain does remain, it’s still beautiful in its own right, […]
Clean Breaks
“He’s lucky, it was a clean break.” People say this sometimes when a leg or arm or ankle is broken. I teach high school and I am always surprised at how often my students end up injured, often seriously. “It was good that the break was clean.” How can a break be good? I’ve never […]
Dreaming Big
I do my best dreaming in the shower. Not fairies and Ryan Gosling kind of dreaming, but world-changing and life-exploding dreaming. I started dreaming those kinds of dreams about two years ago, dreams that keep building on one another and making me ask, “Really, God, REALLY?” {Sitting here now I can almost hear Him […]
The End of Secrets
I am a blogger who is good at keeping secrets. Believe it or not. Even in this world of the overshare and the commodification of experience, even through two years of writing out my life, still: I’m like a vault. I have held on to certain things I do not tell, and I have kept […]
Welcome to The Mudroom
Back in the day, I used to write for Cornerstone magazine. The staff was a community inside of a community: artists, proofreaders, marketing, writers, mailroom. It was frantic and insane and glorious. I miss that sense of secrecy, the privilege of beholding a work of art before anyone else does, the camaraderie of common deadlines and […]
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