cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
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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I have a black-and-white photo of my grandmother from the 1940s that I treasure. She’s dressed in pants and a flannel, kneeling in the grasses of an Oklahoma prairie, focused on something ahead. Balanced on her shoulder is a rifle of some sort. Her hair is short and curled, messy from the breeze. And though…
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One short block away is the beach. The soundtrack of the waves rolling consistently onto the shore travels the distance in the cool and refreshing tailwinds. Wrapped in a large beach towel, I notice the softness and warmth of its fabric and the vertical stripes of its rainbow colors. Sitting in the dark of morning,…
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Flipping through my ninth-grade classbook, one photo in particular surprised me. It was the Future Teachers Club, and I was in it. Me? A future teacher? Joining this club must have been something my counselor suggested, because I never would have thought of myself as a teacher. I never thought of myself as much of…
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Mathew 17:20 “Because you’re not yet taking God seriously,” said Jesus. “The simple truth is that if you had a mere kernel of faith, a poppy seed, say, you would tell this mountain, “Move!” and it would move. There is nothing you wouldn’t be able to tackle.” (The Message) I grew up with a Baptist…
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The city that never sleeps catches a brief catnap before dawn. Faithful street sweepers work tirelessly amongst the murmurs of taxi-cabs. The quietness is peculiar as we clip toward 30 Rock with anticipation. In a few hours, the streets will fill with women dressed in suits and sneakers, toting heels in leather bags, amongst diligent…
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Creativity is living in possibility and abundance rather than limitation and scarcity. –CJ Lyons I woke this morning at 4am. I’ve struggled with insomnia for years, so I know this hour well. 4am is no-man’s-land: it’s too late to take a sleep aid, but too early to get up and feel good about it.…
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I woke in a sweat and hurled myself into my husband’s arms in the kitchen. When had I last remembered a dream so vividly and when had I last felt such panic and fear?
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Some of you may know but some of you may not know that I was named after Alice in Wonderland.
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“In ten years, she sees herself working as a physical therapist and married, with two children.”
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