The following is an excerpt from JULES AND THE DJINNI MASTER, a middle grade fantasy novel by J.M. Roddy. From J.M. Roddy: This scene happens about midway through the novel. Jules, a fourteen-year-old boy, joins the members of a secret community hidden in the mountains in a world where animals talk. This scene came about from…
I go into the dressing room with blousey shirts and leggings, chosen for how they highlight my assets and disguise my liabilities. But this one makes my chest look too big, this one’s sleeves are cut at the widest section of my arm, and this one shows the bulges at my waistline. I hand them…
“If there were a choice– and he suspected there was– a choice between, on the one hand, the heights and the depths and, on the other hand, some sort of safe, cautious middle way, he, for one, here and now chose the heights and the depths.” –Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy When I was five,…
I’m standing in the grocery store and I’m about to lose it. I’m with my five- and three-year-old and no one’s screaming, no one’s crying. By all appearances everything’s normal. I should be normal. But I’m not. It’s been an hour of frustrations, divided attention, not being listened to, not finding what I’m looking for,…
“Every man has a map in his heart of his own country, and the heart will never allow you to forget this map.” –Alexander McCalll Smith A couple of months ago, my husband, Matt, and I took a trip to Washington wine country. We left Seattle in the morning commute, crossed over Snoqualmie Pass into…
If there’s something my Italian heritage has taught me, it’s that food brings people together. Not just to eat it. Making pasta is a family assembly line, taking an entire day of talking and drinking wine while hands busily fold and seal tortellini. You make lots and you invite the neighbors. Food is tradition and hospitality, love and gift, shared enterprise and social do.
Pruning leads to growth. It’s so counter-intuitive, but the power of this truth continues to astonish me. I see it in the lacecap verbera twisted through the arbor lattice. I pruned it a year and a half ago and now it’s fuller than I could have imagined. I see it in the apple tree buds, twice…
Kindred 