cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
Stretching my legs in the gas station parking lot somewhere along I-70 East, I had never felt so lost in my entire life. Not lost in terms of directions. Lost on a deeper level. Age 24 and along for the ride as my parents headed to a week on the Atlantic Ocean with both of…
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As I consider my final Red Tent essay, I remember the distinct feeling of writing my first piece. It came flowing out of my heart in a hospital room, and it “had to be” shared. In the midst of my processing and growth, the tent has felt like a protected space that holds my historic…
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My words went live on Red Tent Living for the first time on my 40th birthday. Ten years and over 60 posts later, I now know that they were more than words. They’ve always been so much more than words. In the space so generously offered to me, I gave generously back. I let you…
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Over a decade ago, my mother, Tracy, welcomed you to a tiny corner of the internet that was slowly unfolding as Red Tent Living. The website was always intended to be a place where women could come and connect in the middle of our messy and hard ordinary. Red Tent Living wasn’t about perfectly curated…
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“I’ve never told anyone this,” she whispered and leaned across the cafe table. She proceeded to share the harder, truer side of her birth story–the story of when she felt powerless, voiceless, and ignored while laboring with her first child. Two years later, she still felt confused. Her baby was healthy. Her body physically recovered…
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It’s 3:30 a.m. I’m tossing a turning again, beads of sweat rolling between my shoulder blades and breasts…again. I forgot to take magnesium when I was winding down for the evening…again. I’m dreading the alarm clock going off in just a few short hours and waking up groggy to the never-ending list of tasks that…
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“Suck it in girls.” I tighten my core and smile as a group of mothers coach my friends and me on how to stand for our homecoming pictures. As a 33-year-old woman looking back on these photos, I wonder, what was there to make smaller? A 14 year old who had barely passed puberty, I…
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“A tulip doesn’t strive to impress anyone. It doesn’t struggle to be different than a rose…Look at little children in kindergarten. They’re all different without trying to be. As long as they’re unconsciously being themselves, they can’t help but shine.” – Marianne Williamson On the last week of kindergarten, with parents and grandparents present, our…
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Dormancy All winter long, we surveyed our brittle yard from towering windows, biting our nails, looking at one another furtively. Bald spots like patchy beard growth dotted the hills. “What is happening?” we wondered aloud. We hoped, we prayed for germination. Under the lodgepole and ponderosa pines, where my husband on his knees scraped the…
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Getting into gardening these past five years has taught me more about being a human on this earth than most things. My garden offers me a glimpse into the tiniest thrummings of life that crawl among the soil, the way it so delicately and yet boldly holds life and death, and its need for seasons…
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