Archive for September 2015
Those Life Adventures You’re Excited For — Guess Who’s In the Wings?
Fifty cents for a refill of the house coffee after hugging Amy and Tasha goodbye and I’m back at Coffee Talk. Sitting at an outside round glass-topped table on the front porch, the table trembles as I write and the 9:20 am sun is just cresting a tall pine tree to my left. Cars, trucks,…
Read MoreBeating Burn-Out and Burning Long
It floods and crashes, this wall of raindrops thundering and crescendo-ing around us. This is the second sheet of water this afternoon, long roaring showers that drift in my open windows, batter the leaves, and rush in tiny tsunamis down the side of the road. Photo: DeShaun Craddock, Creative Commons, cc license Water soaks into…
Read MoreCreating a Home in Life’s Chaos
Standing in line on a Minneapolis street in 2006, we started crying. Wiping tears off our cheeks, we laughed self-consciously. “It doesn’t feel right to be here without Mom, Dad and Jeremy, huh?” I said. My sister nodded. Photo: Carolyn Pinke Fifteen years earlier in war-torn West Africa, our family of five lived in a…
Read MoreKorean Octopus, and You, and Me
“Whoa, octopus! Let’s get some.” He’s peering in past a frosted glass window to a ten-inch package of purple tentacled octopus legs coiled tightly, their suction cups pointed out at us. In an international Asian grocery store with green tea popsicles and dried mango slices, I love that seven year old Daniel is brave and…
Read MoreThe Call on Line Two
It started last Monday night, but I didn’t have the courage to say anything until Tuesday. Well, Wednesday, honestly, if you count non-husband people. Because I whispered it to him Tuesday morning, the shy awkward news about an embarrassing uncomfortable pain. Photo: Flavia, Flickr user And you don’t want to know. Just nod and murmur…
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