This afternoon, I walk down vibrant streets amid trees of every shape and size, their saturated leaves upturned to receive, awaiting the coming of nourishing rains.  Sweat meanders down my spine, the humidity thick and heavy with promises.  It will rain today, in heavy sheets, but in the meantime, the landscape waits, dense with anticipation. […]

I know your heart. That’s what my friend says, after I have rattled off a dozen questions at her, an interrogation like bullets flying, too fast, my thumbs shooting out over a digital keyboard. I am working when I see and respond to my friend’s message, sent because she too is working, both of us […]

Unraveling heavy things, my friend tells me a story about taking her kids to see the dinosaur exhibit at the museum. “In the beginning…” She doesn’t use those words, not exactly, but she might as well have, because right from the beginning it feels as though her story belongs to me too somehow, belongs to […]

On a Wednesday, I sit waiting for physical therapy, twisting my stiff neck to look as a woman walks in with an ash-black smudge right in the center of her forehead. This looks like no accidental blemish I’ve ever seen, and for a moment, feeling a little uncomfortable for her, I wonder how it came […]

I watch Riley’s face as she describes her first in-person day in vocational school, how animated she has become, how her eyes shine and her smile deepens, her voice lilting while she recounts all the details to a close friend of mine who, having come over with a tray of baton cookies in her hands […]

I can hear Riley running behind me now, feet crunching on the glittering asphalt, her breaths ragged and shallow, and I smile, remembering a conversation I’d had with her about breathing.  Riley has been training to run a 5K. Here we all are, just a few days past Christmas, on the other side of the […]

Riley leans against the kitchen counter, waiting out a two-minute timer that counts down while chunks of chicken sizzle in the pan.  She holds a fork aloft as she alternately considers the cooking meat and the digital display, as she murmurs to herself about what’s next.  I watch her head nod gently as she speaks, […]

“When it’s time for Adam to do his roller coaster move,” my friend says, speaking of this year’s dance choreography, “we do it one by one, in accordion style, and Adam starts laughing and doesn’t stop until it’s his turn.”  She grins, absorbed in the memory of dance practice.  I watch faint steam curl out […]

My friend steps in the house quietly, glancing toward the desk where Riley sits taking an online college course, slipping her arms around me to pull me into a hug. “It’s good to see you,” I say softly over her shoulder, thinking that there’s nothing quite like feeling your arms full of friendship. She draws […]

“I’m so thankful God gave us such a beautiful day for our walk,” Riley says, and it’s like she’s reading my mind as I stare wide-eyed at flame-red leaves set against a cloudless sky, as I watch the sunlight dance, as I listen to my daughter, who once could not speak at all, describe what […]