For the month of October the women of Red Tent Living will be considering the theme, “The Bitter End”. We hope you will join us by reading, or perhaps by choosing to host your own Red Tent Dinner.
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The Show Is Over
Sing it Kierra! “I don’t know if you have noticed, I’m doing me and I love it. I just ran through the fire. Please don’t judge me.” Piping in the background is my new theme song. The lyrics wrap around me like a veil.
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To Bleed and Break
Sometimes all I can see of my heart is red. Red for the bleeding, the breaking, the pain. Red for the sorrow, the wonder at the way I’m wired. It takes a lot to hold out my heart. To bleed for others, their hopes, their suffering, a relentless concern for those who repeatedly break me…
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Embracing Innocence
“When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” – C.S. Lewis It happened almost every Sunday night. My parents and I would return home from the evening service at church, open the door, and be met by a burst of heat.…
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Wrinkle Cream and Eternal Glory
The cheap, squat container of white cream makes a wild claim: the power to stretch time, to make it elastic and supple. All I have to do is grease my face nightly, submit to the sting, and it will dam the water that is bubbling beneath the surface, conspiring to burst forth and rake my…
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She Is Here, and She Wears White
I listened with the suspended premonition that accompanies “one of those moments.” A moment often accompanied by a niggling prod to pay attention—something pivotal is about to happen.
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The Encounter
I lie still, my back pressed into the blankets on the summer sheets, arms clasped across my chest, eyes closed. I cross my feet. Sinking, sinking, not drowning. Gravity compels the air to form to my body, enclosing me, swaddling me. As my body floats, the bed disappears.
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May You Walk as the Woman in White
Who is the Woman in White? Is she you? Is she me? What does it mean to be the Woman in White? Is she respectfully standing in solidarity with other women as a declaration, or is she the ghost of a beautiful woman who was once scorned or betrayed? Does she represent purity, virginity, goodness, light,…
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With No Purpose
Every year I look forward to the passage from winter to spring. This year I hardly noticed it. During this year’s transition month, I was admitted to the hospital three times, each time sicker than the last. Surgery was the last option but the eventual outcome. Then ICU, then complications, and then, finally, I was…
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If Life Was a Food Fight
My critical eye takes in my form in the long oak-framed mirror as I tuck the billowy white top into my jeans. On principle, I don’t wear white. “White” is my lunch, make-up, and pit stains on display for the world to see. It’s impracticality, stamped with an expiration date.
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