I’ve called this place Bethany J’s Journal since it’s beginning, but I’ll admit it isn’t my journal— not my real, blue hardback with the exotic fish on the front and squatty cursive inside. Here, I draft, tweak, redraft, edit, polish, and find pretty pictures to match each article. My real journal is messier, and while … Continue reading Introducing “Sunday Sketches”
Not even my parents can remember a blizzard like last week’s— when we shoveled half a foot of snow off the pond just so we could skate, while the wind reddened our faces and froze our hair. More snow covered our work in minutes. The sky cleared on Wednesday, so now it’s sun on ice— … Continue reading Winters Past & Present
Friday, January 8 I fiddled with my ring while mom picked up the phone to talk to Drew, and her face froze: “It’s time?” They induced Leanna tonight, and all I know about that is it will get the baby here tomorrow or the day after. Saturday Evening, January 9 Got kids clambering all over … Continue reading He Came with the Morning
He sold black, ceramic owls. They were eighty dollars apiece and one could’ve fit in my palm (I didn’t try). His booth was tucked between a t-shirt souvenir shop and the street corner where a tan man in a fedora rasped out tunes on wood flutes. Dad and I stopped to have a look, and … Continue reading Eyes to See
May 31 I journaled my way across Texas’s panhandle last June, writing things like this: I’ve noticed the plants here grow together. Only occasionally is a shrub brave enough to weather the prairie alone. And those that do wear brambles to prove their fortitude. My Missouri home is green and humid. The contrast between Southwestern … Continue reading Shrubs and Trees and Living Water
They say the songs of your childhood never really let you go— that music has a seizing, shaping power. It must be true because my Southern Baptist pastor dad still thumps the steering wheel to Journey and James Taylor. Now I’m crossing that threshold between childhood and life beyond. I’m eighteen and watching just how … Continue reading In the Morning, When I Rise
