Evening, and twinkling lights glint on gold thread.  I ask Adam what he wants for Christmas and he says, “Presents.”  The word lights his eyes and tumbles out of his mouth with dancing laughter and an “Oh!” that wraps up the feeling of a bow-topped gift given, handled, expectantly shaken. “What kind of presents?” I say, reaching […]

“Don’t come into the kitchen,” she says, rushing over to me as I walk in the door, as Adam squeezes past and dumps his bag on the table, emptying it of its contents.  “It’s a surprise…Don’t come in.” I close my mama mouth and smile, even though I’m thinking that I already know the surprise—she’s […]

It is the way she says it—all laced with delicious joy—that makes me stop.  She sounds the way I might were I to say I get to sleep in or I.can’t.believe I get to lay on the beach and just read—like she’s just realized a thrill, an unexpected and rare gift, and she savors the sweet taste.   […]

In the morning, on the way to school, this is His nudge for me: You need to touch your daughter.   So I reach over and take one of her hands in one of mine, steering the car with the other.  Zoe doesn’t look at me, but she squeezes gently, running her thumb back and forth […]

Standing in line, and the black belt whirs, moving my groceries forward and beyond me. Up here in the front of the store, it’s noisy and crowded.  Lines snake back, crooked and jammed.  Carts rattle.  In front of me, the tables in the cafe are full of people talking and eating.  A little voice cries […]

I don’t know how much time I have left.   Afternoon, and autumn leaves wander and twist to the earth, fluttering through the grass and along the sidewalk.  The sun makes a blaze of the trees.  I stop for a moment just to see, putting down my work, stunned by the fragility of life.  I […]

This week, a departure for Kevin and me, a Sabbath rest: Tucked away, pulled back from the busy road and held–but lightly–by the trees, we hide beneath the fog.  Sound is magnified here, somehow, or perhaps it is that other noise removed leaves room for hearing birdsong, the cheeky chatter of squirrels, the deep-throated gurgle […]

From a grassy field roadside, I gather up the picture of a broken barn with history clear tumbling from it’s splintered walls, the jagged boards dark, like the trunks of trees.  These planks, hewn from deadwood dragged, shaped over sawdust piles, sanded, treated, painted; nailed sharp, clean, with a satisfied whack—these planks caught the sweat […]

Adam stands beside me and his voice climbs, higher and higher toward the sky, pushing, pressing, growing. Sing like never before, oh my soul. Like everyone else, Adam has different voices for different kinds of experience.  This voice with which he sings is his voice for joy, for love, for comfort.  It’s the same voice […]

Beside the pool in the late morning, he suddenly kneels, leaning out over the water.  Majestic clouds move across an unfathomable sky, changing the clear light as it travels down and washes over his bent body, the rustling trees, the white plastic chairs in orderly, framing lines.   From my chair, I pause, gathering him […]