On Monday morning, I wake up sore. Before I open my eyes, a shadowy thought moves through my mind: I can’t do this. I will not be able to do this. The weekend had been consoling and also desolate. On Saturday, Kevin and I had painted walls (renovation!) until our hands and feet felt swollen […]

Spiritual formation is renovation of the soul. That’s what I’m thinking as I empty the drawers of an old desk into a tote, as I shake my head over the accumulation of the years. In the deepest drawer, I find a knot of cords, and I smile, thinking this is how my thoughts would look […]

Kevin and I set out for our walk in the early morning, while the air is crisp and new light glows soft pink. We smile over the volume of the birds, how they chitter and squaw from fence post to power lines to the peaks of the trees, sentinels passing messages. We gesture and smile, […]

We should give this hour a name, when the afternoon swells like a bruise and we all feel molasses-slow, our faces stretched into unending yawns, and still, we have work to do. I want to pour myself another cup of coffee, but I think I have consumed more than enough caffeine today, and something feels […]

Monday morning, and I have a shorthanded list: laundry, laundry, laundry, empty trash cans, clean hand towels in all the bathrooms. I move in that weekday flurry, recycled shopping bags for the trash cans rattling in my hands, having just come home from dropping Riley and Adam at day camp, with a plan to spend […]

When they ask Adam to name his role for the end-of-the-year play at school, he chooses, “Kevin,” says his father’s name in that deep, gravelly voice, just grunts it out like a fact. His teacher smiles telling me this. “I said, ‘Now Adam, you can pick any name you want. Are you sure?’” she says, […]

“Mom?” Riley reaches into the cabinet to my right, rising up on her toes behind me, leaning like a shoot. I wash dishes at the sink, my sore hands soothed by the hot water, the soft soap. The bottoms of my feet hurt from standing so long, and at the end of an afternoon spent […]

“What do you appreciate about your mom?” Kevin asks the kids on Mother’s Day, while we sit in the booth thumbing the laminated menus, waiting for the server to reappear and take our order for lunch. I shift uncomfortably, looking away, sliding my hands against the red vinyl booth, feeling that it will burden them […]

Fresh from the shower on an 80-degree day that feels thick with the promise of Summer, Adam spins–literally–into the kitchen wearing flannel pajama pants–buffalo check–and a salt-washed long-sleeved t-shirt as blue as his eyes. I wonder how he doesn’t instantly feel that sticky prickle of after-shower sweat at the base of the neck and the […]

Riley sits at the bar, fresh-faced and bright, if still a little rumpled with sleep. She looks like Spring, like the first day of sapphire skies; like new flowers with blushing, velvet leaves; like anticipation; like hope sitting right there on a bench in my kitchen., and it’s striking to me because it’s the opposite […]