In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard writes of a patient who was blind since birth but can now see after cataract surgery. There were significant anomalies in their perceptions of space and time. Someone who was trying to learn how to use his new skill would take off one of his boots and throw…
*Sisyphus, from the Greek Myth, was a king charged with the eternal punishment of endlessly pushing a boulder uphill, a boulder which would only, once it got to the top, roll all the way back down again. A just keep swimming mantra of old times. Albert Camus, that philosopher of the absurd, imagines Sisyphus not…
I often doubt myself. Am I smart enough? Am I a good mom? Am I good at my job? Am I a good friend? Am I a good daughter, sister, wife? As trying as this last year was for me, it was a building year: of friendships, family, life, and myself. In July 2018, I…
As a man who walks daily with depression and anxiety, I often find myself in the darkness wondering what happened to my life. Dreams and possibilities seem to have fled into a yawning cavern of disappointment and meaningless loneliness. Reality reverberates with a cacophony of anxious voices echoing despairingly in my soul. It is from…
It was not old, as trees count years, when it succumbed to disease or gravity or storm. I found it lying on the beach at the base of a cliff, its naked frame silver and black. Worn root stumps reached from the butt, fingers scoured away by surf and time. I spied a stone grasped…
I have always loved presents. As the youngest of four kids and the daughter of a pastor, getting something new—not second-hand, slightly-used, or hand-me-down—delighted me to the core. But as the last of the sibling pack, it was ONLY on my birthday or at Christmas that I didn’t have to fight for what was in…
Festive is a popular adjective this season, like it or not. We toss it with the lights, mix it with the carols, and blend it with the eggnog. It’s persistent, and every Christmas season it cheers us up again. Festive has a history. An Old English word, it derives from the Medieval Latin noun festivalis…
The neighbor to our west has spent the better part of the afternoon stringing lights along his roof line. As the darkness has settled, I can see the strands glowing from our dining room window. The outline of their gray farmhouse twinkling through the fog. We do not know these neighbors well, and yet tonight…
When we set the table that night it felt like a normal dinner. Aaron was out at the grill blackening the salmon, a friend had come by to help me chop veggies, and I answered the door and hugged our friends like we would any other night. Filling our table was something we had always…
It’s five a.m., and I’m wide awake. Again. Was it a dream that woke me or the Christmas lights shining in my window? Usually I can squeeze one more sleep cycle in before rising for the day. In fact, I haven’t consistently or voluntarily been up this early since high school, when my morning toilette…
Last year’s winter had me on the cusp of a third trimester waddle. The house was snug under candlelight and what could only be termed an explosion of blankets. My hands rested on a foreign, stretched body to feel movement of life within. It was hard to breathe, but I could. It was harder to…
Come in! And know me better, man! Your arrival signals a welcome, like a surprise party. Waiting in the best gathering place in your home is the larger-than-life Ghost of Christmas Present to your Ebenezer heart needing a bit of a kick-start this year. Huge and hearty, always laughing, enjoying the moment, Present is eye…
Orange juice is the most repulsive liquid known to human kind, and freshly squeezed is the worst. I prefer Sunny D. Black Friday is my favorite day of the year. I like to microwave my ice cream. Lobster is…meh. Pumpkin spice lattes taste like hot dog water. I like the Baby Shark song. These were…
The night is long, and I am driving. A pilgrimage, of sorts. I left at midnight, the dark highway unfolding in front of my headlights, the comfort of familiar things in my rear-view mirror. The flash and festivity of the Christmas season felt hollow, garish, false. I’m past the peak of adolescent angst, but still…
What does it look like to start over again during the festive season? It looks like my husband and I making our annual trip to the Belfast International Market one last time before we made the move back to the States. It looks like a house full of moving boxes, barely unpacked, sitting next to…
Kindred 