Joy

Reaching Across the Edges

I kneeled on the blue mat next to Sam’s bed in the skilled-care wing of the senior care facility. My elbows were on the edge of his bed as I leaned forward to hear him better. I felt like one of those old-fashioned needle point pictures of the children praying before bed, “Now I lay […]

Who Sees You?

I took an art class as a college elective. The first assignment challenged me to communicate the divide between who I was and who I thought I was supposed to be using only a black marker to draw basic lines and shapes on a four-inch square of white paper. As I brainstormed ideas in my […]

Through Seasons of Motherhood

My baby girl will be three in October. She’s into Pixar movies and puzzles and loves singing “Amazing Grace” with her pretend microphone. She’s mostly introverted. She’s already a Type A, and she’s growing more independent every day. She’s becoming a little lady right before my eyes, and it makes me weepy to see how […]

Riding the Grief Wave

My hand grabs a heavy plastic bag as I reach to the very back of the closet. I couldn’t place it at first, and then my heart wrenches when I see the blue sweater. Justin’s sweater, and a blue polo shirt that I had carefully saved from his belongings. His sweet scent and the faint […]

Some Clear Joy is Coming

  TRIGGER WARNING: Description of miscarriage.   *Portions of the second half of this post are from a piece written shortly after the event.    Father John in the driveway comes here to bless me. My Father in the morning will bend to hear me. Some clear joy is coming on some slowest train, I am […]

The Parable of the Exploding Ketchup

We pulled out of the zoo and immediately they started asking for more. “Can we go out for Ice cream?!”  “Can we go out for dinner?!”   “Oh please Mom! Oh please!” We’d just spent hours traipsing around the zoo, petting the wallabies, climbing the wooden train and tracking down the tigers. We weren’t there for […]

Planting Ourselves in This Dirt

I spent the first eighteen months looking for signposts that life sprouts here in our new state. After a historically snowy winter last year in Michigan, I stalked trees for buds. I gently nudged snow from the neighbor’s crocuses with the toe of my boot, my soul hungry for a flowering something, anything that signified […]

Pulling in the Anchor

      I am afraid of the sea.    Like my phobia of heights, this fear is at odds with the rest of me. For I am both a tree-climber (yes, at 37, still) and a beach lover. It is not the working my way up a rough trunk, finding toe-holds in knots and branches, but the […]

Free Fall

  May 27, 2009. This is the day I learn I have cancer. Weird. I never thought I’d hear those words. I am still drowsy from anesthesia. The doctor just comes in, and she says, “Well, we thought it was hemorrhoids, but it’s not. It’s a tumor. It’s cancer.” Just like that. Now I am […]

Into the Storm

What happens when you vow to live awake and alive? What happens when you open yourself to the stir of Spirit symphony? What happens when you become an active participant in your own destiny? What happens? Excitement. Fear. A massive upheaval. In a word: Storm. I was going to keep a secret about this. My […]

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 […]

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 […]