cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
I could list the number of friends I’ve driven away from; the number of car (or airplane) windows my slobbery nose has pressed up against; the times I’ve been the one left, particularly by my own children at this stage of life. If not people, I could name the habits I’ve attempted to say good…
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I interviewed for my graduate program without planning to. You see, I was on a mission. Ever since watching a documentary on sex slavery in India that turned my world upside down, I had been meeting with a few counseling graduate students at my husband’s school. We combed through magazine ads and randomly drove down…
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The woman said it was from the early 20th century—her mother’s from Illinois. It was a sturdy and solid piece of furniture, but more importantly, it was the exact size and shape of what I had been looking for. I would strip the varnish, get down to the wood grain, and stain it back to…
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First, I wrote Leyla. She was a teen I thought my own teen girls might like. Leyla was for them. A Turkish girl, wandering the old city, who falls into an epic adventure to uncover a secret passed among women for two millennia. As she learns to embrace her own strength, she must also accept…
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I see you hovering at the base of the big slide, ready to catch your little daredevil as he proudly descends the last of the challenges this big kid playground has presented. And I am aware of your young mama heart, a little sad that he’s already conquering these obstacles.
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There is a place I like to go that makes me feel brave and beautiful. From the congested street corner you might miss it. If you didn’t know what to look for, you would be carefully watching for the tram or from which direction the long line of honking taxis will emerge first. You might…
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I had a meeting at a familiar hotel last week. We entered the parking lot in the same way, from the same angle that the unmarked minivan I was in had cornered the sex buyers so many years ago. My body flinched as it remembered the look in the buyers’ eyes, the slouched shoulders of…
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I have a memory of belonging, of feeling at home.
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The hours are ticking down on the year and snow is blanketing the roads, sticking in clumps on branches and bistro lights. The inside thermometer reads a number as ridiculously high as the outside number is low, and I am still chilled to the bone. My husband and I are reviewing the year and finishing…
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I stepped in dog shit today. In a different pair of shoes because I stepped in it yesterday, too, and hadn’t had time to clean them. Yesterday, I was mad, but today? Today, I nearly collapsed. “I am a prisoner in my own home,” I moaned, head between my legs, trying to hold myself together.…
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