Love stories surround me--- the real, weatherbeaten kinds. Leanna married Drew in the hottest stretch of summer 2019, their story blooming out of the years our families grew together. They've aged since the day he took her flowers on the riverfront. It isn't the age of body, but of souls that have been stormed on … Continue reading Weatherbeaten Love
I was standing at the window this time last year, staring at the blank ground. My imagination had to stretch and bend to arrange irises, daffodils, zucchinis, cucumbers, and lettuce in their proper beds and boxes. I was sick with spring fever, and all I could do was write about it. But this winter, I’ve … Continue reading Seedtime
For seven years, I stood on my neighbors’ porches every other Friday to hand them some pages I’d written, rolled into a rubber band and labelled: Argyle News. The neighborhood newspaper was mostly a briefing of the birthdays, holidays, and graduations in my family, sometimes headlined by a tree that had fallen across Edgewood Road … Continue reading Front Porch Ambitions
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
There’s a lot I could do, write, remember, cry over, and give thanks for at the end of 2020. I keep shadowboxing the scary idea of summing it all up— wrestling the last twelve months into a corner and chalking them up as “good,” “terrible,” or “sanctifying” (all the above). But summaries tend to accentuate … Continue reading A Year in Books
November 15 Dad played Fernando Ortega at daybreak, as we'd pull away toward vacation-- usually Colorado. Now, I can't listen to his songs without craving a Voss Market breakfast sandwich and a trip West. When I hear "Old Girl" or "Traveler," I think of the sunrise out the van window and our heads lolling on pillows. Fernando's was … Continue reading The Day We Met a Legend
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 10 Growing up, I planted tomatoes with Mom this time every spring. We’d buy a tray at Platt’s Nursery and squeeze each soil block out of its pocket. She made sure they were in the ground before Mother’s Day. My siblings and I usually skipped out of school for an afternoon of gardening. “Pluck … Continue reading Mom’s Tomato Plants
May 3 I want to be a gardener—to know my botanical names, to identify seeds, to plant them so they grow the best possible fruit. Someday, I want to be that little old lady who wears sunhats and keeps seeds in her sweater pockets. But I’m a beginner. If gardening is an art (which I … Continue reading On Gardening and Belonging
Something stopped me from full-throttle resolution-writing this week. I realized the last 365 days have been some of the most pivotal in my life. I don’t want to leap into a new year—much less the next ten—without stopping, looking over my shoulder, and saying, “God, you’ve done lovely, mighty things.” Before we speed into January … Continue reading Look Back Before You Look Ahead: 6 Lessons from 2019
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