On a getaway vacation, Kevin and I explore new terrain, hiking through El Dorado State Park in Colorado.  El Dorado means the gold or the gilded, a term that became popular in the gold rush days, when at another time people crawled this craggy land looking for the gold veining the Colorado Rockies, living hard, […]

Friday morning sun lightly peeks around the edges of the curtains.  I sit snug in the corner of the sofa early feasting on God, and Adam paces the downstairs rooms before school, his feet padding out a metronome count—this this this this THIS—against the floor.  This this this this THIS, this this this this THIS, […]

I am strategic about where I place the pillows at night, once-in-a-blue-moon when Kevin travels, when I pad quietly up the stairs to go to sleep, having thought to start the dishwasher that he always starts at the last of the day, having thought—because I have to—to trace his nighttime steps around the house on […]

“Hey Riley?” Zoe’s voice comes light from my phone, which sits on the kitchen island in the center of the room as Kevin and I turn and twist around finishing dinner; Adam, announcing his echolalia, paces a fast, hungry track around the perimeter; and Riley sits at the bar facing us, wearing a listening grin, […]

Running late, as usual, I feel stressed. I imagine myself purpling and breathless, like some vile thing has me by the neck as I sit out in the car thumping the steering wheel with my thumbs, willing my Riley to finish her checking rituals—and yes, I took my morning pills, and yes, it looks like […]

“Hey, are you still praying about that stuff on our prayer board?” I hear Josh ask this of Riley as we ease in at a stoplight, on our way home from their classes.  Filtered through the fiery trees, late afternoon sunlight bathes the world in warm pinks and golds.  In the rearview mirror, I can […]

Caught up, as usual, in a morning flurry, I pause to hug Adam on my way out the door, to tell him I hope he enjoys his overnight field trip.  Most years, the staff at the school Adam attends arranges a stay in the lodge at a nearby park, where the school community does both […]

Here we sit, Josh’s mom–my friend Camille–and me, two sisters, on a velvet sofa in a coffee shop called Lucky Tree, twisting cups in our open hands, talking, as mothers do, of life-giving. Oddly, it strikes me that when we get up and leave this place, an impression of our bodies will remain, lightening the […]

This morning a verse that I’ll carry all day, like a go bag or, a staff that bears my weight and steadies my feet: Continue steadfastly in prayer, staying awake in it with thanksgiving. I sat on my parents’ back porch for a while just receiving provisions, grace, from God, sipping coffee while the day […]

It’s evening here, where our feet beat a path down a dizzying urban road that smells like sunbaked asphalt and motor oil and sweat, like jasmine perfume and donuts and bitter coffee, where stars blink on the buildings as well as in the sky, lighting the night an inky crimson black.  The intersections pulse with […]