Angels we have heard on high. But rarely do we see them. When we’re low and need the peace to help us muster a smile, it may take an angel or two. Seasons show us the cyclical nature of life. One year ago I was being prepped for surgery to remove a very large tumor…
This morning I woke up in pain. I had a headache, as usual, and pain in my upper back, which has been happening more often lately. Not long later, my gut cramped badly enough that I couldn’t carry on conversation with my husband, who was talking to me about limiting the kids’ time on the…
In the past two months, I have lost my home, my possessions, my job, and my church. I’m not a natural disaster victim. I didn’t do anything wrong. My partner didn’t leave me or die. All of these losses were voluntary. I lost them in order to gain something far more precious: my health. Allow…
Hygge is the posture of the Danes in the long dark months of a northern winter. They create environments of beauty and pleasure, safe from the harsh elements outside. Candlelight in the windows, wood piled high for the hearth, knitted blankets, hot tea, and good books. Everything this hobbit of a girl could ask for.…
I can hear it from our bedroom, that low heavy rumble of a train on its tracks. There is a faint whistle, but we are many streets up and there are rows of trees and a river between us, soaking up its sound. Often only the heaviness of movement is what I can hear, a…
I close my eyes, fighting against the tears. Sam is below me, his hands tight around the rope, his voice soothing and patient. “You’ve got this, come on.” I take a deep breath and try again, finding a solid place for my right foot. My fingers cram themselves into a small crack system, and I…
The most magical moments of my childhood were spent alone. I would lay amongst the prickly spears of grass in the meadow near my home—never able to escape the heat of the midday sun—and always in an imaginative world of my own. Laying flat, pressed against the bosom of the earth, I would roll in…
“The more civilized man becomes, the more he needs and craves a great background of forest wildness, to which he may return like a contrite prodigal from the husks of an artificial life.” —Ellen Burns Sherman This summer I did three backpacking trips in five weeks. I keep wondering what it is that propels me…
“And if we ever leave a legacy It’s that we loved each other well.” – Indigo Girls, Power of Two It was the picture I was dreading to see. At first, I forgot it was even there. Tucked in with the images of my handsome husband and the smiling faces of our two beautiful children, and…
This weekend we went to a wedding, and I’ll be honest, I felt like a middle-aged mom in a mall-bought dress. For good reason it turns out, as I am in fact a 36-year-old mom, and I was, in fact, wearing a dress purchased from the mall. The whole way there I was fidgety and…
Right now I feel safe. Right now I’m living inside well-defined boundaries with lots of rules and restrictions. I don’t feel trapped here. I’m way more afraid of what’s outside the boundaries, so in here I’m happy as a cow penned up to pasture. But I’m afraid right now too because the boundaries are temporary…
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,…
Kindred 