May came—the green, bright end to the school year—and we’d shut our math books before noon, eat on the porch, then run to the swings or grab bats from the garage. The apple tree would blossom, the mowers would hum, and it would have been a shame to sit at our desks and miss it. … Continue reading By Wisdom is a Schoolhouse Built
My pastor said last Sunday that it's no mistake where we meet Jesus. I met him at the kitchen table, when I was still small enough to fit on my dad's lap. He had unlatched and pulled the two halves of the table apart, so there was a gap where the leaves might go. On … Continue reading At the Kitchen Table
We read Miss Twiggley’s Tree so many times that both covers tore off, including the final page of the book, which offered the moral of the story. But the last page I had was enough. It pictured the inside of Miss Twiggley’s house, tucked deep in the boughs of a willow tree, where the entire … Continue reading A Set Table in a Safe Tree
"Time to get up." His voice cut into my sleep like soft butter, a corner of my mattress dipping beneath him, a hand on my ankle, frost in the corners of the window, crumbs in the corners of my eyes, a pink sun kissing the bare treeline, he in a white dress shirt saying, "Little … Continue reading Talitha Cumi
I do not know if my great-great Grandma Howard was a round woman, or if she was as twiglike as my great-grandma Wanda, or if she had my grandma Karen’s smile, or my dad’s love of German chocolate cake. I only know what Dad remembers, and that is her cinnamon rolls. They were doughy to … Continue reading It’s Recipes We Remember
“Today is the longest day of the year,” Mom would say one evening late in June, then shoo us out the back door to drink up every last drop of light, because, she said, the evenings would only be getting shorter from now till December. So I’d lie over the swing after dinner, brushing my … Continue reading The Longest Day of Light
The carnival tent on Fifth Street was hot as an air balloon. The old men wore shiny shoes, and there was one woman in a dress with piano keys all over it. Ragtime wafted from pianos all over town—from the mainstage on Fifth; from somewhere up in the banisters of the Bothwell Hotel lobby; from … Continue reading It Began in Sedalia
There were many things I did not know about Helen McCallie, but none of them surprise me. For one, I didn’t know she had hiked across Central Africa as a single woman in the sixties. I didn’t know she played classical piano, or that she sang opera--- though I remember how her laugh sounded like … Continue reading Goodbye, Helen
Whenever Papa Larry tells of the lavender farm he and Nanny visited up in Maine, I stop to listen, because I can almost smell the sweetness of flowers and sea. And then he'll reminisce to when they met the Lupine Lady herself--- Mrs. Barabara Cooney, who wrote the book Miss Rumphius. This past Christmas, Joel … Continue reading Acres of Lupines
A Story of Christmas Past My grandma Karen watched Hallmark Christmas movies the way some people use an Advent wall calendar. She counted down to Christmas that way, settling into the couch every evening for the newest feature with the same cookie-cutter plotline as the night before; and she wanted us to relish them too. … Continue reading All Shall Be Well
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