I find it hard to throw myself into something if my life doesn’t depend on it. My siblings and I used to use the phrase, “Do it right, or don’t do it at all,” and it came to my head last week. I didn’t realize it's a motto I still chant under my breath. Yesterday, … Continue reading The Worth of a Garden
Today, we're headed toward the sea. Since winter, when our plans for this trip were still scattered across the kitchen table, Papa Larry has brought a new scrapbook with him each time he’s come to dinner. They are all full and tell the stories of different trips he and Nanny took to Cape Cod (30 … Continue reading A Holiday at the Sea
I wrote a letter to my friend, Sarah, last week and told her I’m suffering from Gardening Shame. There are weeds in every box, and I haven’t re-mulched the paths, so black tarp shows through like the garden’s underwear. My tomato plants won't take to the soil and stand limp. Zoysia grass creeps in and … Continue reading Gardening Shame
"'But if it’s to be a flower name, then I don’t trouble about the length: it must be a beautiful flower, because, you see, I think she is very beautiful, and is going to be beautifuller still.’ Frodo thought for a moment. ‘Well, Sam, what about Elanor, the sun-star, you remember the little golden flower … Continue reading A Little Light
I watch motherhood from the outside, surrounded by my books and garden and time to spend on them. I read Frog and Toad to the kids, but I don’t feed them, teach them, band-aid them, nurse them, shush them, spank them, birth them. I refuse to wash peanut butter off their faces, and even though … Continue reading The Moms I Know
“Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while,” said Jesus to his disciples, “for many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat” (Mark 6:31). Wyndham Mountain Vista isn’t a desolate place. We pulled in too late to book our favorite condo overlooking the fog that huddles … Continue reading “Come Away and Rest Awhile”
I noticed the halls didn’t smell like green beans and urine like most other nursing homes I'd known. People smiled here. (Except for the secretary who yelled at us through the glass that the code was 1080, and that we’d have to let the cook know we wanted to share lunch with Ms. Louise, because … Continue reading Ms. Louise
The swingset oak is forty years old, taller than our maple, cedars, even its pin oak siblings. Mr. and Mrs. Adams planted it when our neighborhood was still a field and Mom was still a kid who ran through it. Early last fall, the tree started browning— far too early. By November, it was naked … Continue reading A Good Sign
“Well, do you think spring has sprung?” he asks, and I look up to see things from his view. His yard is a patchwork of green and yellow, the trees at the crest of Edgewood are leafless, two brand new tulips stand awkward and alone off his front porch. “I—I think it has. I hope … Continue reading Is Springing
There were seeds that got thumb-printed into the ground, and there was bread dough that hadn’t risen. There were farmers and fishermen. There were women in labor, who groaned and bled into the darkness. Jesus saw what surrounded him and pulled it into the stories he told, because a King and Kingdom had come, were … Continue reading Like a Seed
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