The edges of the towel she’s folding don’t match, but I don’t care.  I rest a hand on the doorjamb and just take it in, the young woman she’s becoming.  She sees me standing there and flashes me a grin that erupts into sweet laughter as she leans over the laundry basket, reaching, her brassy […]

“Where are you going?” He asks, in a voice muffled with sleep, a voice just on the edge of awareness. My hand stills on the doorknob.  I turn back toward him, not much more than a shadow. “I’m goi–I can’t sleep.”  My voice falls lightly.  “I need to—I don’t want to keep you awake,” I […]

Groggy in the morning, and I read this verse, tapping my finger against the page: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. (Ephesians 6:10-11) I read it while the steam curls from my […]

Show time, and my friend’s four year-old daughter refuses to sing.  From where I sit some rows back from the stage, I have the perfect view of her eyes—wide, expressive, and determined; dark pools surrounded by sweetness.  She frowns, one of those grimaces that betrays an effort to remain fierce and resolute, shaking her head […]

When Loggerhead turtles hatch, they are the same color as the sand.  We have to lean down to see, after a  friendly woman—a stranger wearing a pink baseball cap and salt-smeared eyeglasses—beckons to us, backlit by the sunrise.  Initially blind, we wonder what she could possibly have to show us in the middle of that broad stretch […]

In the dark, we slide our feet into flip flops, creeping out the door with steamy mugs of coffee balanced in our hands, with plump towels draped and dangling from our arms.  Whispering, we search the sky for signs of first light, for wisps of cotton-candy pink.   Carefully we descend the stairs, touching foot […]

They are not, of course, in the butterfly garden where they are supposed to be, not in the lane past the pretty picket fence and that rough, weathered gate that threatens splinters.  I sit down on a bench in front of a high, knotted hedge thick with vines, allowing my eyes to wander over wild, delicate […]

They cast a long shadow on the lawn, all legs, son in so many ways like his father.  It’s striking.  Nothing really prepares a mother for the moments when she looks at her children and sees something of the adults they’re becoming, the careful sculpting of the future.  No matter how broad those shoulders get, I […]

I love the light when it’s fresh at the start of the day.  It’s like a clean window we’ve not yet touched with our fingers; like the diaphanous edges of some sacred space.  Sitting on the porch in the morning feels like resting in the palm of God’s hand as He slowly opens his fingers.  This […]

Evening at the beach, and I’m swaying in the porch swing, pushing my toes against the deck planks.  It’s too dark to see the ocean from where I sit, but I can just make out the faint, ever-changing lines of white caps, like fine, thin sketch marks adding dimension to shades of black and blue-gray. […]