Like puzzle pieces of an entire, we can only guess what’s behind the mask as we pass in a parking lot, at work, or in a store. But if eyes are indeed the window of the soul, we should be seeing some deep things even six feet apart. We should be connecting on another level, […]
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This week when I was out walking, I saw a perfect tree. I paused to look up and appreciate the sway in the wind, its colors moving in and out of sunlight, its form and height. Under its outstretched arms I breathed a prayer of thanks. I thanked God for the tree in all its […]
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Every morning I take a walk in the city and pass a spot where I can see a massive field of grain. As I top a hill it’s there. My entire vision fills with gold. Day by day whiter, riper, full of grain almost ready to be harvested. It takes me back to those sticky […]
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She sat on my daughter’s bed, bent forward and fumbling with the gadget on her lap, a thin white line connected it to her ear. Even though I stood across the room, I could hear the music throb. Long black tresses shadowed her face like fingers hiding her eyes, concealing emotion. She yanked one of […]
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A round robin family letter, the kind meant to keep families connected in normal times when coronavirus has nothing to do with being apart pops up in our inbox several times a year. Cousins with blood thick enough to span miles and embrace in-laws, convene together in one compiled letter. Pages long, it’s like the […]
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“The things I do for my kids,” I thought with a half-eaten Big Mac in one gloved hand and piece of wilted lettuce in the other. “But this tops them all.” I stood on a stool leaning into a food court’s garbage bin. I wasn’t happy… Of course, we desperately want them to be happy. […]
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I know well my husband’s furrowed brow. I am well acquainted with the set of his jaw and the far away focus of his eyes. His spinning thoughts, the ones that talk louder inside him than spoken ones addressed to him, need hearing. They are the fix it concentrations of a man named Phil whose […]
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“Oh mom,” my college aged daughter said, and could it be I heard a tiny bit of impatience in her voice? “Half the kids I know in college live in the same town as their parents and they aren’t as close as we are living across the ocean from each other.” My whining stopped. As […]
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“She’s my friend,” my daughter said with a nod. “She doesn’t cheat.” My head shot up. “And some of your friends do?” I asked, thinking at least my six-year-old was on the right side of that conversation. “Sometimes,” she said. Then she ran out of the room. A pinkballerina streak, while I stayed sitting on […]
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Last night I dreamed I was in a crowd of people in a store. We were pressed together in a small space and I knew I was too close. Too near. I woke up wound tight like a mummy and with a headache like a bulldozer had plowed through. A lingering image of trying to […]
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