first
The letter was three pages long. For weeks, I had waited for it, longingly checking the mailbox, anticipating its arrival as though it were announcing the Queen of England was coming to visit. The year was 2001. I had graduated from High School and was enrolled in a college-level Creative Writing Course via correspondence with […]
In this time of social distancing, let us remember we are not solitary eagles. We are designed for community. We are wired for connection.Yes, we should take precautions and live with wisdom. Yes, we should wash our hands extra times. Yes, we must take care around each other.But we must remember: we are not alone. […]
It’s still dark outside. No morning hues have yet streaked the sky. I hold a cup of strong, black coffee. I sit in the recliner next to the fireplace. I open up my latest book, “Wondrous Encounters” by Richard Rohr. I read. I think. I pray. I listen.The puppy curls on my lap.This is my […]
Two strands of white Christmas lights are still hung inside my house. A strand above the fireplace. A strand above the dining room window. Last week, I took down our Christmas tree while Thomas boxed away the inflatable Santa Clauz who rides an armadillo. Seven boxes of Christmas paraphernalia were stashed away above our garage […]
Disco lights flashed on the ice rink. Skaters of all ages and sizes floated, zoomed, or shuffled past my son and me. The two of us held hands as we attempted to glide gracefully along the ice. Our glow bracelets, compliments of the Ice Centre, encircled our wrists, making us feel both cheery and brave. […]
“You can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family.” Harper Lee’s words from her iconic novel, To Kill A Mocking Bird, have resounded through history. This sentiment shows up in poems and movies and even everyday life as we consider the people who are closest to us and how we have been […]
My mom loved casseroles. They were cheap, versatile, and fed all of five members of my family. She could throw random ingredients together and we would feast – poor-man, gourmet style. These concoctions were really not my mom’s creations, nor was it her fault that she fell prey to the gooey, fatty, salty, decadence of […]
I crept into my bathroom, late one summer evening. My bathroom’s pale-yellow glow reminded me of a run-down hotel room. One with hidden cockroaches, bed bugs, and various stains on over-used mattresses. Just enough light for me, as I didn’t want to be seen. Or noticed. Or heard. I was 25 years-old, had a […]
When I was 16, my family and I lived in a small village in southern Germany. In the large house next to ours, surrounded by a huge garden of various flowers and vegetables, lived an older gentleman named Johann. As we chatted one day, across the fence that separated our yards, he told me that […]
The first time I heard Taylor Swift’s, “Love Story”, I wept softly while sitting in my car. Had she been spying on my dreams? How did she know? “It’s a love story, baby, just say, yessssssss…..” Taylor Swift is neither psychic nor omnipresent. She just had the power to put words and music to the […]
