cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
For my son’s high school senior retreat, we were asked to write him letters that he could open during a period of reflection and meditation. The theme was “Where do you come from?” We were encouraged to tell stories about grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. My throat tightened in an all too familiar feeling. My German great-grandfather…
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I have been trying to get more in touch with my subconscious. I worked with a hypnotherapist, who showed me how to get into that deeply relaxed state where you can “reset” your pesky subconscious if it is struggling with some trauma.
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I don’t do much state-of-the-art technology for myself. I bought my son a new set of wireless ear buds as an early Christmas present. He kindly bequeathed on me his old pair. He showed me how to store them in their charging case, and explained that the case itself would have to be plugged into the charger from time to…
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When he was a young child, my son’s body felt like an extension of mine. His nuzzling, nursing lips on my breast, his feel, his smell, his desires—all of it was an extension of me. Even now, as a teenager, his desires and motives are astonishingly transparent to me when I consider how hard it…
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I gave birth to my son via C-section. It was not how the script was supposed to go, but I was an older first-time mother and a natural birth was not in my destiny. When the nurse laid my baby on my breast, I was so numb from the epidural that I couldn’t feel his…
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There is a saying that is particularly apropos of the Colorado Front Range: “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.” We can have snowflakes one moment, sleet the next, hail the next, rain the next, and then always a return to our characteristic blue skies that inspired the country oldie, “baby blue was…
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I rested on my nordic skis at the edge of the meadow. The sun was just up, the sky perfectly blue. The snow sparkled, the meadow before me was a sea of glitter. It beckoned, promising a glorious experience, yet I felt small and alone, and reluctant to start across, for some reason. I took…
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One recent morning, a memory of the smell of the Cape Cod shoreline seared across me so sharply I almost gasped. Our memories of place can have this effect on us. After decades in the southwestern desert, I still miss the scarlet reds of east coast maple trees in autumn so much that I sometimes…
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We have had a terrible dry winter and spring in the southwestern desert. Day after day has dawned with clear skies and a relentless sun. The land has grown parched. The pine trees in our yard have turned brown, and the threat of fire looms across the mountains above our town. It has become a…
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I handed my collection check to a friend and slipped out early to my car. I was surprised that I wasn’t angry. I felt curiously at peace, despite the sudden disruption of my worship plans.
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