cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
Endings can feel like death, but they also hold so much hope if you remain present in the tension of the liminal space they create. My son moved out of our home last week. He spent a year with us after his college graduation, which was a gift of unexpected time. As I headed home…
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I remember the day I first met my neighbor. As I strolled down the street, she greeted me with a warm smile, and we struck up a conversation. Little did I know that this chance encounter would blossom into a close friendship. Her family had been a part of the neighborhood for quite some time,…
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Amanda, our second born, cut the thick rye bread on a cutting board across from the sink. The remnants of the bread scattered over the counter onto the floor. I bent down to sweep up the debris, and she said, “I have always felt the weight of your perfectionism.” Annie, our firstborn, and I were…
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Upon finishing graduate school, my new husband and I were wide open to all the places we could move. We were young, and the world was our oyster. The big dream was to move to Boston so he could attend a trade school, but the job hunt for me was hitting dead-ends and we were…
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Standing on the front deck of our bay house, I was captivated by the view of sunrise over the water once again. Pretty much every morning my husband and I have been here the dogs have woken me up earlier than I wanted for their morning potty break and breakfast. But secretly? I have loved…
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Sunning ourselves on the terrace in the pale Norwegian sun, I watched my daughter and son-in-law relax, knowing their daughter was asleep. On maternity leave and paternity leave simultaneously, they have been able to be much more attentive to her than their own parents were to them. They are both Third Culture Kids (TCKs), born…
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The day we decided to surprise our three boys with a trampoline, we stayed up late putting it together on the back patio after they were in bed, with me on constant lookout, sneaking into the hallway to listen for any signs that we might be discovered. There was so much joy and anticipation that…
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I put it off for as long as I possibly could—the slimming down and organization of our fourth bedroom. We established it as the playroom when we moved in with our little girls six years ago, but I was finally accepting that, at ages 15 and 12, they were doing far less playing than ever…
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There’s a little known story about a guy named Jack and a girl named Rose. Rose didn’t share her space with Jack, so he died. Oh, you know the story? I saw the movie Titanic when I was 12 years old, and even then, it didn’t make sense. They were lovers. They spent the entire…
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Last month, my husband and I moved from the home we’ve lived in for 24 years—the house we built after moving back to Michigan, where we raised our family. There were several moments throughout the stressful process when I felt like I’d foolishly launched into the deep end of the pool and wasn’t going to…
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