We’re up to our eyeballs in South America today. I, sipping coffee and still in my comfortable fleece pj’s, am riding along the Orinoco River with some explorers from the 1980’s, blond mullets and all. We are spotting monkeys and macaws and learning about how… Read More
It’s mid-November and every vision of our school year, every high standard I held myself to as a mother, as their teacher – they are the piles of rubble and dust that I am now climbing over and brushing from the bottom of my bare… Read More
When life is heavy, we lift. When I scramble for babysitting, last minute, and my life feels overwhelming or heavy. Friends, they help. They make my life, my heart, light. When a man on the curb is holding a placard that reads Will Work For… Read More
We were eating dinner at a small and dim middle eastern restaurant on one of our first nights in Bucharest. Our professor, leader, guide, smiled kindly at us, weary travelers having just crossed the ocean for this semester in Transylvania. We were talking about how… Read More
Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it. – Genesis 4:7 These words wavered from a six year-old’s lips on Sunday as a microphone was, to her surprise, propped in her face. Sin is crouching at… Read More
I’m cleaning, sweeping what appears to be an entire box of Kix, scattered across my living room floor. I’m throwing toys, and parts of toys, and unmatched socks, and sticky, crumpled papers, away, away, away. I’m returning stained, ruined, couch cushions back to their places… Read More
I spent the day trying to pinpoint a moment. I spent the day trying to remember when this attitude started, when this smarter-than-thou, I’m-my-own-person-give-me-my-space, phase began. I spent the day wondering if I am too hard on him. I worried that he is angry, but… Read More
My grandmother and I hugged and asked each other the same question we always ask at these things, these family cookouts, Christmas parties, get-togethers. How’s life? She asked first, and so I let loose the usual Oh, busy, busy, busy, diapers, portrait sessions, kids in my hair,… Read More
Dear Lila: When I die, I want to be holding my two special quarters and be buried with them. And Fluffy Unicorn. And your hands. You said this to me today. It was mid-bath, while I rigorously scrubbed frothy peppermint shampoo in your head. Shampoo… Read More
I’ve been stopped a lot in the past couple of years. Stopped, as in, pulled over for a reason other than an expired inspection ticket. And a lot, meaning, three times. I’m thirty-four, and this is the most I have ever seen flashing lights in… Read More
The Frozen Moon 