In the late afternoon, we sit and sip coffee from steaming cups, two friends with a wealth of life between us and crinkles at the corners of our eyes. We toss aside our phones, with all their connection that disconnects, and wrap our fingers around warm mugs. I brewed the coffee and she showed up […]

I admit it:  I don’t want to go. Here I sit at my computer, working, checking things off of my list.  More, I strike them through with satisfaction.  Those lines, they could be the slashed out edges of me, the angles of my shoulders, the sharp bones of my cheeks.  Sometimes I mark my identity […]

We gather to pray, our chairs pulled together in hasty circles.  The whole room echoes.  We make knots–so many weak-kneed, hungry children–tangling together to sort out the kinks in our hearts.  It strikes me sometimes, how our strongest posture can look from the outside like our weakest.  But see, there’s nothing stronger than being with […]

In the waiting room, she reaches for my hand, lacing her long fingers through my own.  She presses her palm flat against my palm until all the lines meet, intersecting for a stretch and then contradicting, all posts and crossbeams.  Her moon eyes speak paragraphs over still lips, tightly drawn.  They are imploring blue–those eyes, […]

Arms full of teenaged girls, every afternoon.  I mean, I have their hair in my mouth.  Those long, honeyed strands fly in my face whenever my daughters curl their lithe bodies into me, the one pressing her cheek into my lap, the other settling her ear on my shoulder, reaching for my hand with long, bronzed […]

Zoe grabs my hand before I turn. “Wait.” We stand on the threshold looking out at the world.  Clouds wrap thick, dove-gray over the warmth of the sky, until all sight takes on a stormy cast.  Winter lingers, and I want to reach out and touch the knobby buds on the branches of the tree in […]

Evening, and twinkling lights glint on gold thread.  I ask Adam what he wants for Christmas and he says, “Presents.”  The word lights his eyes and tumbles out of his mouth with dancing laughter and an “Oh!” that wraps up the feeling of a bow-topped gift given, handled, expectantly shaken. “What kind of presents?” I say, reaching […]

When we step onto the beach, the sea swells high and shimmers golden green in the sunlight.  A storm matures unseen somewhere off the coast, out over the great deep.  I know this, and still I cannot imagine how the water pools so high just here at the edge of the shore, why it gathers […]