“What’s this?” she says, leaning into the doorway, that smile wide.  She wears blue eyeshadow, like tiny snatches of bright sky calling her eyes up. I explain that Riley and I are the proprietresses of the stocking stuffer room.  “Mmmhmm,” Riley chirps agreeably and the ball on her Santa hat bobs, while I guesture toward […]

“This isn’t a gift,” she says, passing the gift bag across the table.  The bag is cool teal, like one of the stripes in her shirt. Except for the clear absence of tissue paper, it certainly looks like a gift.  The twisted paper handles slide down her fingers as she extends her hand. “No, I […]

“I can’t–” “Here, I’ll help you,” she says, my Riley, who once said nothing. The kids at our table–this table, finished with glitter and glue and flecks of marker and fingernail polish, finished with a whole history of growing and laughing and living—these kids flat press their little hands on construction paper, tracing, jagged-cutting the […]

Ready to leave, and I touch his arm, just two of my fingers, gentle, against the bony jut of his elbow. “Don’t you want a jacket?” I ask instead of tell, because this is not a life-threatening situation, and because choices facilitate growth; the understanding that someone else can have a broader perspective, that Love […]

He presses the cross into my hands, a rugged, delicate thing he pulls from his pocket I don’t know how; it seems bigger than pocket-sized.  I run my thumb over the intricate carving on the stem and then let it rest on one palm so I can dip my fingertips into the tiny ravines.  I […]

On the field, a tangle of feet, tennis shoes slick with wet, flat grass, green-smeared on Converse white.  Some of the kids sprint, others twist and skitter, like wind-blown seeds.  It’s a game, a favorite: the prey try to make it across the field to grab up a bit of foam “food” in their fists, one […]

Walking and talking of heavy things, the churning, sputtering things that muck up a mind, I drop them like stones from my hands, leaving them discarded.  This is the one place I can toss out all the yuck without poisoning another soul, this winding road beneath trees that endlessly pour forth praise.  The wind carries […]

Out of the corner of my eye, I see them kneeling in front of my son, knees pressed hard into the floor right there in front of the chair where Adam sits waiting for me, glancing at his watch.  I’m too far away to hear them, but I can tell that they’re talking to him, […]

They sit waiting–my children and this party of their best friends, a huddled, cross-legged, patchwork group in costumes as vibrant and varied as they.  Even with the house lights dim, I see the startling glint of silver sequins, a neon vest, leotards and athletic jerseys.  I slip into a chair and just smile, holding my […]

Morning breezes across the one knee I’ve drawn up to my chest, across the bare top of the other foot I push against the floor so the rocker will rock.  The messy bun on the back of my head bobs against weathered wood and woven reeds, and I find myself thankful for freedom, the freedom […]