After I graduated from high school, my mom shared that she had cried herself to sleep every night during my senior year. I was angry that we had moved away from my childhood home in Phoenix to a soulless suburb of Seattle, and I acted out in typical but relatively harmless ways—smoking cigarettes on the…
In the past five days, I broke up with my boyfriend, asked my pastor to reconsider the church’s prohibition of women in elder and pastor roles (and in a separate conversation, asked my father to consider the same), and called a collection agency to tell them I couldn’t pay my bill. It’s been an exciting…
Mist curled around the edges of dark hills in the distance, lines and lines of vineyards flipped past like the pages in an old rolodex. I lay my head lazily to the glass of the bus window, satisfied with my choice: I had chosen to say yes to Adventure. To Unknown. To the call of…
I’ll tell you a story. Maybe it will sound like an exaggeration, but I’ll tell it anyways. As best as I can say it, as true as I remember it. There was a girl living in Hawai’i who tutored students a couple of mornings a week at the university academic center to buy textbooks and…
“Mamma, are these daddy’s socks?” I continue to stuff crumpled up tissue paper into the recycled gift bag, pretending like I don’t hear. Maybe he will get distracted, and I will be spared. “MAMMA, ARE THESE DADDY’S SOCKS?!” No such luck. I sigh and turn around. I feel like a teenager who has just sneaked…
Today I enter my studio readying myself to engage the day. My espresso assures me that Courage will be arriving shortly. I made the appointment the night before, but she is so often late. My oils, conte, watercolors, and pencils welcome me warmly. “When do we start?” They look to me eagerly. They love most…
During the summer before third grade a large manila envelope came in the mail with my name on it. Inside was a letter T on tag board paper, and instructions to decorate the T however I pleased, then bring it to class with me on the first day of school. I immediately got to work. …
“…isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” -L.M. Montgomery from Anne of Green Gables So often when we come upon a new year, we think about what we dislike about ourselves, our habits, and our lives, and create resolutions to address them. Bettering ourselves is a…
The pages of the cooking magazine are sticking together just enough to slow down her flipping. She shakes a page loose and it sprinkles her with floury dust as it falls open with a papery crackle. A photograph of yellow and pink frosting swirled into lofty mounds atop cupcakes spiraled on a stand evokes for…
In a different life I’d paint the streets By night, a stealthy lord. An artist loner dreamer type, Allegiance shown in words. On business walls and reader boards On windows and on signage. I’d Banksy this and Fairey that Along my pilgrimage. Art speaks the words I cannot say Graffiti…
My five-year-old daughter awoke from her nap still warm and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She climbed onto my lap as I sat at my desk, trying to muster the energy and creativity to write something. She asked if she could help, so I told her I needed to write something involving the word…
I got asked out on a date the other day. At first, I didn’t know what to think. Since I met Akash (my then boyfriend, now husband) when I was 18, my ‘adult’ dating experience was limited to the first few weeks of college, a little over fifteen years ago, so I was a little…
“In whatever sorrow you may be, however inconsolable and irremediable it may appear, believe me that the old woman in the cottage, with the young eyes, knows something, though she must not always tell it, that would quite satisfy you about it, even in the worst moments of your distress.” -from Phantastes by George MacDonald…
Tie a yellow ribbon. Be on time. Set an alarm. Set two. Don’t forget your purse. Where are those keys? It’s heavy whipping cream not half and half. She’s had a hard year. Don’t bring up her trip to the U.K. Sing from your diaphragm. It’s not your fault. Don’t forget to breathe. Just breathe.…
When my son Roman was just shy of a year, we were at Target picking out thank you cards in anticipation of his upcoming birthday party. When I refused to let him toss the cards all over the aisle, he lost his mind. He threw himself onto the floor and pulled a move that I…
Kindred 