91Apr 17, 2020
Sometimes all I can see is what hurts, what’s hard, what I wish could be different. Before we even leave our driveway, Riley stops, setting her water bottle down, handing me the paper, her pen. She lifts her sunglasses, peers more closely at her phone. “It says license plate, so…” She talks to herself more […]
92Apr 10, 2020
I stand behind, holding Riley’s hair in my hands, twisting the damp lengths into Dutch braids while she thumbs through notifications on her phone. With practiced fingers I smooth the hair, which is honey brown when wet and, in places, darker with shadows. I weave, my hands trapped in the loom, and slowly an elegant […]
93Apr 3, 2020
Blooms litter the street, floating down from the pear and cherry trees like flat fairy carpets, like petals tossed to soften the footfall of a bride. I feel out of place here in my tennis shoes, but am I? I glance at the sky–cloudless, blue like the sapphire sea around God’s throne. Everywhere, the Holy […]
94Mar 27, 2020
In the late afternoon, while I stand in the kitchen strategizing, with ingredients for four different meals sizzling or simmering or slicing under the knife, with mixing bowls and crumb dotted small appliance parts gathering at the sink, I realize I have run out of spoons, and I don’t mean the kind I use for […]
95Feb 21, 2020
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 […]
96Dec 27, 2019
“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 […]
97Nov 15, 2019
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, […]
98Oct 11, 2019
My hands lay open in my lap, palms turned up to receive whatever grace God loves to give, somewhere that should feel like home. I bend my head to rest, empty of expectation. This Sunday, round tables replace the rows. Today, we actually worship together; we actually commune. It feels like wandering into a sprawling […]
99Oct 4, 2019
“You need to get with it,” I say to Riley, like I do nearly a dozen times a day, then I jot down the phrase. Get with it. I taste the words a little, stare down at the shape of them, the jerking movement of the letters. Kirk Byron Jones has me watching my language […]
100Sep 13, 2019
We sit, Kevin and I, on metal locker room benches dotted with holes, our bodies carefully sandwiched between a woman in a kerchief–silver-gray hair slipping out at the edges, and a herd of boys climbing over their mother. Mom smiles weakly when we say hello, studying the numbered slip in her fingers while one of […]