"In the night also my heart instructs me."
Sometimes I feel that magic (the real kind -- sorcerers and dragons and witches with wands) is only a heartbeat away. It is as if I need only to hold my breath for one more beat of my beating heart before that castle-cloud will shift, fling wide its gates, and let me walk inside, a... Continue Reading →
The wildflowers he picked, replete with one majestic cattail, lasted only a few days. But in those days, they were splendid, holding court over the windowsill houseplants from their place in the vase on the coffee table. The priest (who, I hasten to add before your conditioned brain runs away with you, was a woman)... Continue Reading →
It’s still dark here. The crated Pete is crying because Binks, who was locked out of the bedroom all night long, is in my lap, getting his attention cat-like, with long body twists that resolve themselves in a wet nose rubbed against my inner arm. He makes typing difficult, but I won’t move him. I... Continue Reading →
The happiest I ever was with television was in the fall of 2003. I’d just returned to the U.S. from two years in Budapest and was starting a master’s program at Indiana University. I’d rented a tiny, sad 1-bedroom apartment over the internet as it existed then and had essentially no money and less time.... Continue Reading →
I had a job interview in Toledo on a Friday, got engaged that Sunday, got a job offer the next Tuesday, and now I’m moving next week. My spiritual director suggested that it might be worthwhile to reflect on the decade and a half I spent in northeast Indiana — to articulate what I’d miss... Continue Reading →
Oh God the holy father, I pray for we, the people, who worship you as best we can drawing (because we cannot help it) our crooked lines in rippled sand. I am grateful that you are a wave, which, though it could come in destruction will not will only wash the lines away. I pray... Continue Reading →
I walked thinking how it was all coming to an end. These springs which return sooner and warmer, bringing with them now not soft buds but rather disaster; cyclones across Mississippi, the very air turned against us, and why shouldn’t it be? We pouring poison into it generations on, because? Why? Well it’s easier to... Continue Reading →
Welcome to Lent! I should write about what I’m giving up, right? Well. Yes. I should (have). I’m a week late, I know. But there was an ice storm. First there was a day of rain. Ominous and beautiful, water falling onto branches, sidewalks, power lines. The temperature dropped. The world turned crystalline, everything catching... Continue Reading →
One day the car broke and stayed broken for a week. The week after that, the fence fell down in high winds. I was home for my lunch break and found myself, instead, braced against 50-mile-per-hour gusts, trying to wedge vinyl slats back into vinyl cross-pieces. The fence, currently is being held up by a... Continue Reading →
Yesterday, I was uninspired. I sat in front of two eggs I'd fried along with two links of allegedly-healthier turkey sausage and an all-important banana. I thought I should write. Did not know how to start. I have not managed to write thirty essays in the thirty days before Lent. I’ll be lucky if... Continue Reading →