Moments of Mortality

I ordered dinner from a popular chain restaurant in town, pushing open the door and stepping back in time to fifteen years ago.  The smells and sounds were the same: the din of conversation, the smells of frying potatoes and corn chips and chicken, the calls of “corner!” and “Need a runner!” and the constant [...]

To Dust Thou Shalt Return

The older I get, the more powerful the words hit me… “Remember that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.” Dust. Just a handful of the smallest particles we can really see, tossed about to fall at will. Dust. So insignificant, so miniscule, so invariably variable that it’s nothing we even pay attention [...]

Perspective

Yesterday, I went to the gym to pound out a few more miles on the treadmill.  I was scheduled for five so I settled in for the long haul, feeling the tug of the motor beneath my feet and the beat of the bass in my ears.  To the left of me, an average sized [...]

Running To Stand Still

No doubt about it, 2013 is shaping up to be the year of the silent roaring… the year of the hushed screams… the year of the whirring buzz of energy spiraling just beneath the surface. I feel blanketed in something slightly resembling discontent only it’s less unhappiness and more like the hum of something I [...]

What Do I Stand For?

You know how you can hear a song a million times but then one morning you’re listening to it while getting ready for another day of monotony and suddenly it just… connects?  Suddenly it makes more sense than it did every other time you heard it. Suddenly the lyrics dive bomb into your consciousness and [...]

The Christmas Story

This time of year does something to me, ever since I became a mother. I didn’t realize it until 2009, when J was just four months old, and I found myself sitting in a church pew on Christmas eve, bawling my eyes out while the minister read the Christmas Story.  All of a sudden it [...]

Swings

Mid-morning on Sunday, J and I went to the playground in the hopes of burning off some of the steam and energy he was smoldering through the house.  We got there to a mostly-empty park and he made a bee line for a swing and asked me to push him. Back and forth, back and [...]

Autumn Again

For the past few days, it has finally felt like Fall outside. The leaves in my yard are inexplicably on the ground when just yesterday they clothed the trees, the temperatures are sweetly jacket worthy, and the air has the unmistakeable hint of smoke, wafting from either  preliminary chimney use or burning leaves.  For some [...]

It Takes a Village

There are a lot of things I admire/covet about my sister: her ability to let troubles roll off her back like oil on water; her imaginative and sweet-natured son and daughter; her wide expanse of a yard including an herb garden, chickens, bees, and a swing set;  her attentive and engaged husband… the list goes [...]

Embracing the Gray

“It’s foggy everywhere,” He pointed out the window with his small finger, tracing shapes against the glass.  He was right, of course, as the mist lifted off the nearby river and cloaked our town in something sweetly gray and not-quite-sinister. I’ve tried, on several occasions, to explain fog to J, but he doesn’t quite understand.  [...]