cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
The sun is setting before the low-grade headache from another day spent on my screen fully registers. But now the muddy light of my apartment has sharpened the artificial glow of the laptop, and I can’t help but wince. Note to self: explore blue light glasses. A bit of self-awareness ushers me into my body,…
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She peers over the edge of her handlebars, wondering at the hill ahead. Can she go down it with eyes closed? Can she hold her breath long enough to make it to the bottom? Wind in her hair as she unstraps the helmet, dangling it below the bars, she grips the rubber under her little…
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A little notebook sits on the back, left corner of a small, brown table in the tiny kitchen of my cottage on the Dutch Caribbean Island of Saba. No matter how many times I spray and wipe down the wooden surface, a thin film of “too many chaotic dinners” remains. I reach for this journal,…
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I lean against the steering wheel, pulling my jangling key from the ignition. Pursing my lips, I summon the confident, 23-year-old diva at the height of her vocal training. I smile, catching a glimpse of her in the rearview mirror, and then sigh as I take hold of the reality that it has been a…
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These days I spend a lot of time staring out of the window. As I’ve aged, I’ve become more of an internal processor. I balance all of the competing priorities in my life: person, wife, mother, daughter, doctoral student, executive, friend, minister. So, while sitting in front of the window, I entertain a carousel of…
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“Do you love me?” say the blue grey eyes of my 12 week old daughter, Asha, as she stares at me. I respond, “We’ve been doing this for a while, haven’t we my love?”
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My friend called me after reading my last Red Tent Living Post. He is not just any friend, he is my friend whom I trust and love as a brother.
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“You do not write the best you can for the sake of art, but for the sake of returning your talent increased to the invisible God, to use or not use as He sees fit.” –Flannery O’Connor I remember sitting in the post office parking lot that day, the heat of mid May filling my…
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Once upon a time it was not okay to say, “No, thank you.” Somewhere along the journey of life, my no was swallowed up by duty and obedience.
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After spending time with my grandchildren and my brother I am finding my heart to be more tender than I had known previously.
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