It were a foolish and ridiculous arrogance to esteem ourselves the most perfect thing in this Universe. —Michel De Montaigne. “In Wildness is the Preservation of the World.” —Henry David Thoreau Yesterday it rained, a soaking rain that saturated the soil, sinking deep into the starving earth, and the air seemed to smell of deep…
It has been years since the old stereo console in my grandmother’s front room worked. Years since anyone even looked at it as anything other than a convenient place to prop the family pictures that litter her front room with memories that at 95 only she recalls. And I am not sure what prompted it,…
One of the realities for me of being a writing teacher is that I spend my life reading: reading books, reading craft theory, reading student drafts, reading the work of my writing group. I find myself frequently in a place to discuss with others their ideas and their opinions and their storytelling—whether they are writing…
“I don’t think we want to go this way,” I said to my husband as we headed north on the freeway right outside of town. It was fall, and we were packed in the car, with our kids and luggage and coolers full of snacks and on the road meals, for a weekend trip to…
My youngest son is 17, and right now, in this moment as I write, he is practicing the piano, pounding too loudly at the keys trying to perfect a song for the Christmas recital that may or may not happen, all things being what they are right now with social distancing and limiting interactions and…
In the last couple of years I have written and received too many condolence letters. And I wonder about them, these artifacts of sorrow and grief, inscribed with a litany of words that do not say the things we mean to say, because there really are no words for those feelings, but instead we turn…
There is a story my children like to tell, when they are especially annoyed with me, or when there is a new audience, or when they want to remind me of the frailties and foibles of being human and it goes like this: We were going out to dinner one night, a sit-down dinner in…
I was sewing a day or two ago, some simple mending that had been ignored for far too long—stitching a torn hem here and mending a button there, settling into the simple act of repairing the wear and tear of catching unexpected corners, and sudden scuffles, and boys wrestling in the living room and the…
Spring is a season stuffed full: of damp grass and flowers emerging riotously from the earth, of the sussurating sound of bicycle chains and the grate of lawnmowers blistering the air for the first time in a handful of months, of children running from one end of the block to another forgetting in the burn…
Some years ago, (more than I like to admit) when I was a fairly new mom of four tiny humans coming in rapid succession, two little girls, and then two little boys, I met an older woman, another mother who had several grown children of her own, someone who wanted to chat about our babies,…