Garden Therapy
The couple who previously owned our farm—she was a weaver, he was a musician and accordion repairman—were very artistic in the layout of their flower beds, so now it’s nearly impossible for me to distinguish perennials from weeds. This, combined with
Hold Me
My daughter treated my husband like a stranger for four days after he returned from the hospital. It was a blessing in disguise, however, because we were concerned how he would be able to recover from brain surgery with a toddler
The Velveteen Mama ~ The Complicated Gift of Becoming Real
Over these past three years since my daughter’s birth, I have been in the process of becoming real. Like Velveteen Mama real. I am sure you know the premise of The Velveteen Rabbit, either from having read the story yourself or from
The Compost Jar of The Mind
I was sitting in a patch of sunlight warming the kitchen table—pumping milk, listening to classical music on Pandora, and reading an article about being a kind mama. Garbanzo beans were cooking on the stove that I was later going
Time For This
A bald eagle screeched in the distance. A derelict silo broke up the horizon’s striated hues of blue, purple, and pink. My boots sunk into the melted slush covering the dirt road. My four-month-old nestled against me, bundled between my
Valley of Dry Bones
We sat across from each other—our sick four-month-old in my lap, our sick toddler having a meltdown in the living room, a delicious meal before us that I had not prepared. My shorn husband looked so unlike the fierce protector
The Day That Will Forever Mark Our World
“Where are you?” the nurse asked, shining a flashlight into my husband’s eyes. “La Crosse, Wisconsin.” He winced. “The hospital.” “And why are you here?” “I have a brain tumor,” he said. I turned away—eyes stinging—and stared down at the wet street,
Don’t Judge…Lest You Have The Same Kind of Child
He was a painter with a lazy smile; she was a weaver who wore sweaters that would shrink to child-sized if caught out in the rain. They came into our grocery store at random times of day to buy our
Conquering Fear In An Unsettled World
Our toddler began screaming the instant our minivan entered the darkened tunnel of the car wash. Her head thrashed from side to side, as she tried to anticipate the monster’s assault. Eyes welling, she was on the verge of really cutting
Our Big News
As I went through my closet today, culling dresses with yellow sequins and stiff crinoline slips and stacking them on a pile for Goodwill, I thought of that quote by the hippie transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, “Beware of all enterprises