Small Challenges I love the warmth and consistency of the simple comforts of my life, the predictability of my daily routines. How they soothe my anxious mind and feed my soul. But I also understand t...Read More
Traverse Outside, the wild wind, the blowing rain whip fallen leaves into a frenzy, knock weakened trees to their knees. Inside, only a wall and window away, I am cozy in my flannels, toasty socks, wi...Read More
Missed Connections Real life is hard. We are busy, distracted, preoccupied. My words are insufficient, awkward. I say the wrong things or I don’t know what to say at all. We just keep missing connec...Read More
Your Gift In this cold, bleak season, the cover of green long gone, all kinds of messiness is exposed. The world looks stark, turning thoughts to gray. Then, one, small, lovely thing breaks through th...Read More
Sledding We walked that day through falling snow, dragging our sleds behind us. Through cold wind, into the heat of exertion and beyond to the perfect hill- an abandoned roadbed, gradual slope, smooth...Read More
Light of the World An unexpected loss plunges her into a dark world. So she writes, pulling from time and experience, every twig of hope she can find. She places them, by hand, in a small brown notebo...Read More
A New Year It is a quiet day, much like any other, except for the awareness that a page, all used up, every line and margin filled, has turned. The emptiness of this new page gives a moment of silent ...Read More
Other People Of course, the big lessons came from family members, teachers, the major players in your life. But there were other, less obvious people, too. You know who they were- a neighbor whose kid...Read More
Early It is early, early and I am still half asleep, still a blank and fragile open book. The fact is, most mornings lately, even before consciousness the pages fill with the scribblings of the loudes...Read More
Pace Imagine the sound of a cloud moving leisurely across the sky, a pine tree’s imperceptible growth compelled by its longing for light, a gentle rain’s slow slide down the pane, the sigh alignin...Read More
Written six years ago. Still adding the numbers. Numbers My father died at fifty-nine, the age that I am now. My mother lived on another thirty-six years, which happens to be the number that I have be...Read More
How They Saved Me My prayers of desperation were almost always centered around my children. Please. I beg You. Bargaining, even though I don’t believe in that sort of thing. I would have given my li...Read More
Questions About Place Can you ever really know a place? You show up, dwell in it for a short time or long, but you never know its whole history. What happened here before- a day ago, a decade, a centu...Read More
I Want to Learn Instead of rushing to resolution, insisting on an instant fix, I want to learn to clear a space for the difficult questions. I would sweep away the debris around it, the panic and proj...Read More
Still Small Voice I don’t need to tell you all that I am anxious about. Just watch the news, look at social media. There are a thousand voices screaming it out. I cannot add anything to this hurting...Read More
Generosity It took most of a lifetime for her to understand that it wasn’t so much gifts or kind deeds as it was something much simpler and more challenging. It was a willingness to enter another pe...Read More
Season And now, leaves are just beginning to droop, elderberries, overripe, are dropping, tomatoes have taken on their late season tang, and there are apples, so many apples. We are between. It is no ...Read More
Living Within The Mystery The older I get, the less I seem to “know”, the more I realize that we humans look for answers more than the truth because answers, even if not quite right, help to quell...Read More
This Train That Is My Life “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” Hans Hofman I wouldn’t say that it is speeding by, but it is moving at a ...Read More
A Tree Falls in the Forest Sitting here on the cabin porch, all of a sudden in the distance, a loud crack, a whoosh, and a monumental thud. Then a reverential silence. A great giant has fallen. A sing...Read More
Home I like to be the first one home in the afternoon, to find the house silently waiting. The books rest on the shelf, leaning gently to the left. The table holds the candlestick benevolently in its ...Read More