I heard the front door close behind him before I was even out of bed. I’d overslept. Now I’m slurping coffee and lighting candles, reading from the One Year Bible. Sizzling sausage. This is the tranquil intro. Tapping out a bass line in email responses. I can hear the rushing water of the shower upstairs [...]
On Monday I turned 37. (That’s me, second from the right, the day Mandy came home.) This is nearly impossible to fathom, because wasn’t it last week I was celebrating my 12th birthday in Kaiserslautern, Germany? Weren’t we riding the train, my aunt and grandmother and two girlfriends and I, trying on new clothes in [...]
Little Samuel points to the “boo boo” on his forearm, scrunches up his face and says: It stings, Mom. Feel it. I don’t understand as he presses his wound against my forearm, holds it there. His eyes fix upward on mine, searching: “Can you feel that sting, Mom?” Oh. I realize. He believes he can [...]
It’s obvious she has the bug. She is 6 and can’t keep from it. Small brown fingers push the sound from the ivory and I watch her do what I do. Play. Evaluate. Try a new way. Repeat. Build a pattern, wonder where it must go next. She is emotive. Sometimes loud. Often tragic (her [...]
It can be found in wide open spaces. And cherry-pink blossoms. Steepled logs… Spontaneous motion… You can wash your hands in it. And whisper-share it. Find reminders. Carry it home.
I hear my voice traveling down the hall towards me…songs from my record playing low volume in the dark room of sleeping daughters. My biggest fans share this same roof with me. Nothing is more humbling, moving, than knowing these little ones want me with them like this as they drift off to [...]
