Beside the auditorium door, Adam sways, a reed gently tossed, rooted at the feet. For Adam, this represents an attempt at stillness, this planted shifting of weight from foot to foot. I glance at him and smile, and he bends a lengthy arm, touching his name tag with the tips of his fingers, moving a […]

At the dawn of day, while yet the dark of dying night redacts our view, I huddle in the chair by a flickering fire, coffee cup warm on my fingers. The one hand cradling, the other cupped to receive, my heart turns to prayer. I worship; I confess; I give thanks; I ask, withholding nothing. […]

It makes me want to hide. I type the words–vulnerable, the most honest ones I can offer, into my text to Kevin, curling my phone in exactly the way I want to curl myself, further and further away, until I’ve hidden all the tender parts of me. This day, so heavy with life, feels so […]

Home from a walk and still smelling like outside, that fresh blend of newborn and dying things, we walk into the living room. The Winter chill still pinks our cheeks. I know, because I see it still blooming on Kevin’s face as he shrugs off his extra layers, as I bend to plant a light […]

Come with me; I want to show you something. Watch your step; I’ll hold the door, the usual business kind with the glass panes reflecting our faces, my windblown hair, that stubborn purse strap sliding off my shoulder. End of the day and we’re both a little rumpled, right? I look over my shoulder and […]

Walking down the Winter road, everything the color of bone, you could miss all your new beginnings. Faster, faster. Even the street seems like a challenge to hurry, the landscape like a warning. Time is running out. The bare trees reach, branches like skeletal fingers, like venous tributaries invisibly leaking life into thin air, like […]

In the middle of prayer, my friends and I huddled holy around that old table, I hear Riley on the stairs. “Yes,” she says, her pure voice rising sweet with ours, her assent like a clasping hand, an enveloping arm.  It’s as though she’s come upon our group hug and wrapped herself around us. And […]

“You know those days when you wake up and you think, ‘I want to help someone today’? My friend says this casually, leaning into the phone like we’re sitting across the table.  She continues, as if our hearts beat the same. “Well, yesterday I woke up like that, so I got up, got dressed, got […]

We breeze in the back door like windblown leaves turning at the edges, all of us rushing in on the holiday gust. “I’m related to all these people, but I don’t know them,” Zoe said with some awe, us tumbling out of the car and crunching our way through the parking lot, weaving around this […]

I come home weighed down with living, bag sliding off my shoulder down to the bend in my elbow. I carry too much; in all ways this is true, but by and by, I’m learning to let go. Balancing, I shift the load to find my key, carefully taking the steps. I imagine falling up, […]