Home and kids settled, I run upstairs and slip on my walking shoes, tugging at the laces.  Sometimes the only thing I know is that I need God.  I slip my keys and my phone in my pocket and promise to be back soon, and I move, carrying water, heavy in one hand.  I’m thirsty, […]

Since I got home, I’ve been trying to see with my ocean eyes–the ones scrubbed, rubbed and salt-glazed like old viridian sea glass, but everywhere I look, something is out of place. In the morning after breakfast, I sweep, my fingers still rubbery and root-shriveled from the dish water.  Sometimes the receding tide carves lines […]

Even as we leave the house the rain falls silently, light and soft, dotting our arms.  We stare at the sky, the wild chaos of cloud, the battle between light and dark.  After a cleansing, everything looks raw and startling, new. The shore looks flat, smoothed and then embroidered with gemstones, bordered with old lace. […]

We are growing stronger here, together. I say this to her as we walk along the beach, leaving impressions of our feet in the sand.  With every purposeful step, the soft shore sinks.  The salty sea rolls over our footprints, filling the heels, the toes, making briny tidepools and minuscule islands—our own desolate Lilliput, soon […]

I step down the ladder and balance my paintbrush on the edge of the can, reaching down to trace the paint-tattoo on my knee with one finger.  This now dry glob—when did that happen?–looks like a Maui Mist cloud, all wispy at the edges.  I clench and unclench my hands, sore, noticing the red welts rising like blistering […]

Sometimes reluctance drags at the edges of a smile like invisible weight.  It feels as though the pudgy fingers of some ominous, unforgiving beast stick fat at the corners of the lips and pull down, pulling some rather not place, forcing a rather not feeling.  Reluctance is a bully.  It hauls you in the deep end and […]

He places the card in my hand, lightly fingering the rough fold, the paper blue like a storm in the middle of the afternoon or the ocean in places very deep.  I look at the flat, incongruent edges and see fibers; wet, bruised pulp; dye on someone’s fingers.  It’s remarkable to see the beginnings of […]

They sit waiting–my children and this party of their best friends, a huddled, cross-legged, patchwork group in costumes as vibrant and varied as they.  Even with the house lights dim, I see the startling glint of silver sequins, a neon vest, leotards and athletic jerseys.  I slip into a chair and just smile, holding my […]

For them, this was a game.  For me, this was a lesson in trust. “So, see, what you want to do is collect four queens from the middle,” Zoe says, gesturing expansively toward the center of the table.  “If you get the Rose Queen, that’s very good, because you can immediately draw an additional queen.” Adam […]

We gather to pray, our chairs pulled together in hasty circles.  The whole room echoes.  We make knots–so many weak-kneed, hungry children–tangling together to sort out the kinks in our hearts.  It strikes me sometimes, how our strongest posture can look from the outside like our weakest.  But see, there’s nothing stronger than being with […]