Days after Christmas, and their wishlists still hang on the refrigerator, curling slightly at the corners where our nearness, our brushing past, has gently reshaped the paper.  And of course, the lists have been moved a few times–carefully detached to travel with me to the store, lifted once or twice for closer reading, softly touched with an […]

“You know, even pain is a blessing,” he says to me, standing in the doorway still, where cool ultraviolet light bounces against glossy floor, where the warmth of conversation and reunion and the savory smell of roasted yams and honey ham and three variations on stuffing gives the whole room a burnished tone.  Right there, after delivering that […]

Thanksgiving leaves scatter across our table, as though the Wind has carried them in a flying whirl through the windows, twisting them across the grass and through the air to land where we gather to give thanks.  Adam walks to the table, turning first to reach for a pencil.  I feel what he is about to […]

Dinner time–almost, and already the crisp darkness makes our window panes cold beneath my fingers.  I switch on lamps to fill the room with light, light I hope will glow well beyond the house, slipping out around the edges of the panels of the curtains, beaming boldly through the glass.  And with the light, I pray […]

Hello there! Good morning to you, he calls.  He has a brightness I can feel before I see him, even though I realize as I look up that his gear—suit, helmet, even the bike—is all black, like the deepest part of the night. I’m suddenly aware that I’ve been staring at the pavement, while he […]

I love wide, open spaces, those places that could never be arm-measured, that overflow conceivable depth and stretch further than sight; spilling over, covering completely, unbound, unheld, uncaptured. So today, because I need reminders, God sends us in a different direction, turning left on a road instead of the usual right, and this just as I […]

Thank you, Lord, that we have plenty of food to eat. It’s a simple thing he says holding my hand, breathing deeply before God, just as I sit down with a sigh, just as I’ve gotten it all wrong and lost my grateful perspective. Five minutes and it’s time to take Zoe to school.  It […]

In the morning, the rain comes, and I do what I have determined to do more and more these days:  I stop to see, to gather up the feeling of the breeze lifting my hair away from my cheeks.  I spy a plump cardinal hiding just inside the gardenias bobbing gently by the steps, an elegant […]

For a moment, just breathe. Morning run under bluest skies, and the warmth of the sun splits apart the crisp, cool evidence of a night safely passed.  The trees, red and swollen, change the tone of the landscape, pregnant now with possibility.  Spring comes suddenly, like a first breath, a startled gasp exhaled as relief; […]

We will travel a long way to be with family. Dark as pitch in the pouring rain, lights reflecting on the wet road, and our kids settle in with pillows and blankets—two wide-eyed; one quickly asleep again.  I grip a tumbler full of coffee–black and murky like the night sky–in my chilled hands, preparing myself […]