cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
I am sitting in Kerry Park looking at the Seattle skyline when a woman with a canvas bag reading “Atlanta is for Dreamers” passes by me. I turn my gaze from the skyline I have called home for 15 years and stare. Really? Atlanta, for dreamers? Since our recent move to the East Coast, I…
Read More
A nervous shudder ran through my body when I saw his name in the subject line of the email. I braced myself for some kind of ploy. I rushed to make sense of things in my mind. Was he reaching out wanting to make things right or to humbly apologize? I quickly knew the…
Read More
I sat at a restaurant bar with him last night. It had been almost three weeks since I’d last seen him in person. I sat to his left, at the bar’s corner, my body scanning for what our previous attachment felt like. I didn’t feel anything because the atmosphere was crowded, festive, and loud. When…
Read More
I woke this morning to a fresh snowfall. As I looked upon our crystalline backyard, I observed how the white blanket seemed to hush the noise of the nearby interstate, silence the song of the finches, and dampen my own spirit. The snow stirred my color memory, taking me back to a long-past yet still-tender…
Read More
I ran into the grocery store before heading home to my kids, I had just returned on an overnight flight and was going to grab premade food for our dinner. I laughed when I saw my best friend in the produce section, but stopped when her stone face greeted me, “you don’t know, do you?…
Read More
In Korea I could disappear. Not like, “40 year old woman goes missing on vacation and is never seen again,” disappear. But rather, disappear so seamlessly into the masses that I’d never even feel lost. I could be among a dozen people and not even be noticed. Physically fitting in might have been the missing…
Read More
My twin bed was nestled in the edge of the narrow room; a favorite homemade floral comforter kept me warm. The shadows of the doorless closet in the corner frightened me and the small window seemed like an opening for haunted tormentors to peek in. I was in third grade. I don’t recall what all…
Read More