Ours is an old neighborhood. Old trees. Old houses. Old people, whose one surety in life is the six o’clock news. Wheel of Fortune comes on at seven. Postseason baseball airs after that, and since the Cardinals aren’t in the hunt, folks drift off in their recliners till the grandfather clock gongs 10. Daylight Savings … Continue reading Prime Time
My Aunt Andi flew down from Alaska last weekend for a visit, and she told us how the snow outside her window in Wasilla is already inching down the mountains. The closer it falls to tree line, the sooner the long winter will settle in, when sun will set at three in the afternoon. They’ve … Continue reading Ember
Dear Lord, I am not the gardener I was in March, when the earth was thawing, and I stood on a blank slate, and the only green things were the points of the bulbs. I had springtime hopes, just as I always do. When I thought about August, I saw myself filling Wal-Mart bags with … Continue reading A Gardener’s Lament
Probably the most impassioned thing I ever wrote was an essay called Two-And-A-Half Acres on Edgewood Road. I was eighteen, and for the first time, I’d tried writing about the place I knew best and the people I’d shared it with. I wrote from a hotel room at night, rain blearing the windows and brake … Continue reading The Climbing Tree
Hey, Mom. Thanks for being here, and for reading these things I write every Sunday. But really, thanks for all the times when you aren't here in front of this screen because you're too busy working in the real spaces around you, planning our meals and wiping down the highchairs after the kids have gone (and also … Continue reading Hey, Mom
Take a left at the end of our driveway, and you’re headed downhill, over the railroad tresses, then up to where Edgewood Road meets the Old Highway. You’ll follow Krinning’s fence, which is so old the trees have grown up through its wires — but before you start up the hill, there’s a place where … Continue reading On Walking
Mom said it’s been like Miss Twiggley’s tree here lately— which might be my very favorite children’s book, about a funny lady who lives in a tree “with a dog named Puss and a color TV.” When a rainstorm washes the town away, the groceryman and mayor's wife and police chief and town dogs all … Continue reading Miss Twiggley’s Tree
Folks say I take after my mom’s side of the family— that I have the Latham nose and smile. But Dad and I are alike in a lot of ways too, though they tend to be unseen things, like tendencies. For one, Dad and I both crave a good, stretching view of the horizon. Since … Continue reading The Hill
The first thing folks notice when they step through our front door are the big, oak cabinets that span the far wall of our dining room. And when they sit to share a meal with us, and we pull out dishes—maybe even a pie— from those cupboards, they notice we call them “Frank’s Cabinets.” I … Continue reading The Man Who Built the Lord’s House
By Hannah Mead “I am coming,” He whispers, with cypress smoke and cinnamon. I’m waiting, straw clutched between cold fingers pushed through impatient pockets. But tonight, the promise of dawn lingers heavy below the horizon. Perhaps Venus is pinned like a diamond in the darkness behind the shed that tilts, weary, at the bottom of … Continue reading Advent
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