Keeping Marriage From Losing Its Luster
As the jeweler passed my engagement and wedding ring back in a small plastic bag, I could not stop staring at the brilliance of the gems that had been filmed with neglect and time. I had not always taken them for
The Hourglass of Time
One o’clock in the morning and even in sleep my daughter hiccupped from the magnitude of her eleven o’clock cries. I nestled her closer – her feet pressing into my stomach like tiny hot stones, her dimpled hands clutching the
Lockjaw & Love
On Wednesday night, my jaw started hurting while chewing beef stroganaff I’d accidentally made with bottom round rather than top. I took Randy’s hand and held it up to my face. “Rub my jaw,” I commanded.“What?” he asked. “Can’t you
Climbing to New Heights
Two weeks ago my husband, Randy, was working on our chimney while I sat under the front porch writing. The wind swayed the trees bordering the field and spun the outdoor ceiling fans; hummingbirds buzzed each other like tropical insects
The Mortar Moments of Marriage
I do not know much about masonry, so I will not pretend, but whenever I passed my husband, Randy, kneeling on the stamped concrete porch while fitting rocks along the lower portion of our home that he’d gathered from our
Between Art & Love
I took a literature class in college overseen by a wonderfully eccentric professor with a puffed black bun and a coffee cup coordinating with her rhinestone spectacles who believed that diverging from the syllabus but remaining on topic with what it
The Date Night Disaster
All week long I cling to the promise of date night, which gives my husband and me a chance to flirt and laugh like our love is just beginning and not like, in six hours, we will be getting up with our
Sendimentality: Celebrating Life’s Layers
Since my daughter Adelaide’s birth three weeks ago, I have never been more aware of the sediment of years composing my life. I felt the tectonic shifting of these layers as I slipped a picture of our newborn over the
“Can You Hear Me Now?”
Unaccustomed to a vehicle that doesn’t rattle apart at 65 miles per hour and with the addition of the car’s butter leather interior and electric butt warmers, I felt like a queen as my new Subaru glided onto the interstate behind my
Marriage Does Not Mean Seeing Eye To Eye
My husband and I often do not see eye to eye, and that is not just because of our twelve inch height difference. I have a weakness for wrapping babies like little burritos until their scrunched, reddened faces are the