Slip into Some Quiet
Thumb-sized snowflakes besiege us, flying from left to right across my windows, beauty on display. The wind changes, and they fall straight down in eerie silence. “In sequent toil, all forwards do contend,” Shakespeare would intone from Sonnet 60. “Put on some nature music, will you, Mom?” she asks, the gangly willowy daughter who has…
What Every Man Craves
I watched him pound away on the drums at church yesterday, his shoulders rising rhythmically in a red striped dress shirt. Between measures, his left leg kept silent time. I prayed for strength and energy for him, knowing firsthand how influenza had stripped us of energy this week. Over the Sunday School hour, I sipped…
What All Women Desperately Need
Coffee gurgles invitingly from the kitchen on my left, while jade plants hang low to the right of me, heavy with new growth. She came this week, on a night of icy rain. Glass image shards of her face flickered from corners of my glass-cut front door. “It’s hard to make friends sometimes,” she murmured…
How a Singing Surgeon Shapes my Marriage
Guitar chords squeak slightly as musician Chris Tomlin sings. Sips of creamy hot coffee slide smoothly down, warming a Minnesota January. We have been craving worship these days, my man and I. Clicking through praise songs on Youtube like addicts in rehab, desperate, hungry. Worship seems to be both the mirror and the balm. Words…
Forty Days Later (For You and for Me)
Forty days, a little over a month, of newborn snuggles and breastfeeding closeness… Forty days of blissful “Look how sweet he is!” interspersed with exhaustion and sleep-deprivation. Forty days of diapers, stolen naps, and fuzzy newborn kisses. And somehow in there, the couple probably checked out of their hotel stable, stood in long lines at…
In the Mornings After…
Mary’s night had stretched long. Contractions crested and subsided with increasing regularity. Firelight flickered on rough-hewn rock walls and wooden stalls. Pain washed in waves, until wet heat whooshed from within her and the pressure lifted. A writhing baby- her baby!- reflected light against wet skin, lifted to be seen and placed gently in her…
How to Hide Away from the Bustle this Christmas
A creamy winter moon sits high as I crunch across the lawn. Crimson grapefruit dried and sliced in thin orbs dangle from a blue spruce tree out front, natural ornaments in a recent experiment.Two tiny clementines and an off-white apple hang in dehydrated slivers beside miniature pine cones. The setting sun slants tangerine across the…
Confessions of a Shivering Stranger
I have a confession to make. I’m at it again. For the second time this year and in this neighborhood, I carried hand-published photo cards and a flimsy cardboard plate of food to our neighbors. “Hi, we’re the new neighbors from the yellow house on the corner,” the card started. “Merry Christmas…” Slipping and sliding…
Rekindling Romance a Moment at a Time
“Do you like amaretto?” he asks. Grocery bags flank his feet. “I wanted to get you something different. Plain coffee seemed boring and not like a gift.” He hands me a bag of whole coffee beans, knowing I like to grind them fresh for each brew. We are learning new ways to speak love, my…
When Searching for the Calm & Quiet
Snow falls heavy, quiet. The red pines shoulder more of the burden and sink low, acquiescing. Emerald arbor vitaes shudder slightly in the cold, winter snows settling deeper in their cracks and crevices. Tiny trikes disappear into deck drifts, and a wee man’s steps already erode away. Swings sway gentle in the breeze, and flakes…