New questions we have fielded this Easter: Those crosses that we saw, stacked on the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, what were they? Oh, people carry them to walk on the same path Jesus took on Good Friday? When he walked up Via Dolorosa, right? And then that place in the Church [...]
On Saturday morning Grace and I were puttering around the house. She was in her room and I was folding laundry, and I could hear her humming “Rainbow Connection” to herself. They are learning it in music to sing at an all-school assembly that is obviously designed to make me break down in hysterics. After [...]
I almost tripped again running this week in the morning, and I realized there’s a reason I so often stumble on the ground. It’s because I am so often so dazzled by the morning sky. The grayish clouds grew pink, lit from below by the rising sun. As I ran my head and heart thrummed [...]
A symphony of blues. 9.5 years since a successful heart transplant. Our long shadows on a morning walk out to the end of a pier into the ocean. Caped in towels, they disappear around the curve. Sunsets every evening over the Gulf of Mexico that took my breath away. If that’s not sacred, I don’t [...]
Inspired by the luminous, brilliant, brave, and generous Jena Strong … Watching my children leap into the pool at their grandparents’ house, the bald eagle on the roof of the building next door, the morning sky cracking open into pale radiance as the sun comes up during my morning runs. Walking out to the end [...]
That’s the magic. We have no idea. Ever. We have no idea until the storm passes and we are on our backs in a field ten miles away from home…. Surprise is where the magic lives, between the margins of to-do lists, the aftermath of the eviction notice, the tiny movements on the ultrasound machine…. [...]
When Matt and I got married, a hundred years ago, I didn’t overly obsess about most of the wedding details (as you can see, I wore a ponytail and my dress was a sundress, notable only for the fact that it had a scalloped hem). The only things I really cared about were the songs [...]
Christmas is the mainstay of my year because tradition is the mainstay of my life. It keeps me whole. It is the centrifugal force that stops the pieces from shooting wildly into the void. The only way I can bear the changes that grind on inexorably around me is to pepper the year with those [...]
I’m 37 years old. I have had two children. I am a fair-skinned redhead who used to spend a lot of time in the sun. My body is different now than it was ten years ago, even five years ago. I have new wrinkles, new eczema, new pockets that are softer than I’d like. There [...]
I love empty, unprogrammed weekend days. Sometimes we have adventures and fly through the air. Sometimes we simply hang out at playgrounds. But most often, a wide-open Sunday contains some mix of errands, laundry, walks around the neighborhood, skating, work email, bill-paying, packing of lunches, and cooking for the week ahead. And you know what [...]
