cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
The afternoon air is sweltering as I do a cannonball and make a volcanic splash in the diving pool. I can feel the goosebumps on my arms expand like cones on an evergreen as I sink down into the frigid, dark, ominous water. I am taking my Junior Life Saver test, and I need to…
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Outside the lines my mother told me. That’s this month’s theme. Usually the phrase is associated with a child and their coloring book. The phrase references the lines, rules, expectations given by the book being ignored by children. They color in their own way, however they want. Strange, how as one gets older this concept…
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Like the air, dreams are thick. “Where do they come from?” Slowly moving through stories. Stories electrify my body and paralyze me, strung together much like an addict strings up a row of sober days and calls it enough. These are my sober days. I feel the buzz in my head grow louder, the words…
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My deadline looms before me, but I have nothing to offer. Not a word. I know all I need to do is start writing, and before long, I’ll be finished, but sometimes starting seems impossibly difficult. I turn my attention from the window I’ve been gazing through to my laptop, open a new document, and…
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“He is gone.” My sister’s text startles me, and I sit up in bed. At first, I am confused and think she means her son is at school so that we can talk. I call her, and I know she is not okay from her voice. I realize she meant her son is missing. My…
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It’s 2 a.m. The limbs of the trees outside my window are moving in the wind; the sound of the leaves rustling a bit is agitating. I can’t stop my thoughts, one after another, all in a similar vein, and none of them productive. “Did I have caffeine after 2 p.m.?” “Are these hot flashes…
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“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” Psalm 23 speaks to me loudly as I continue to walk down this path that seems so familiar to me. It is not one I would have chosen to traverse; yet it is one that I find myself on. One could say that…
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It’s Monday, and in-person schooling for my second and fourth grader are finally underway. Schedules are set, school devices charged, extra masks in backpacks. The house is quiet. There is nowhere I need to be and no one who needs me. Then…
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Last week, a robin built her nest in a nook on my garage. I wonder if this is the same robin who had a nest there when I first moved into this house seven years ago. (I admit that I don’t know much about how long robins live or their behavior.)
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Our present world seems opposed to “wonder,” set against the playfulness of fireflies, the mystery of light beams, the power of stardust burning high over our heads. I wonder how to move on with my life. I wonder how to plan for the unprecedented days ahead. How quickly pandemic and tumult and tragedy snuff out…
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