cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
Recently my friend Addie started her sophomore year of high school. On her first day a teacher asked the students to gather in small groups and introduce themselves by sharing their walk-up song with each other. When her mom told me this, I was walking at the park, and I wondered, “What is my walk-up…
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“We were not meant for endings.”* The first time I heard these words I was attending a women’s workshop in Washington. I didn’t just hear these words but felt them in the pit of my soul. Endings have marked me and my story since the beginning of my life here on this earth. One of…
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One of the first pictures I posted to Instagram was of a smashed banana with googly eyes. I believe the caption said, “Look what I found on my pillow. I squashed it. #evil #friends.” How absurd. That was pure, authentic, youthful Haley right there. I keep scrolling to find more pictures from my college years—pictures…
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I am not a wild woman, I am a tired woman, A “give me a minute,” stressed and wired woman.
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I’ve always found myself in the dance of caretaking, waiting for my partner to take the lead, whether my mom, my dad, or a friend. When I found myself disappointed or let down, I’d lead instead. It was exhausting, but necessary to get my needs met. Occasionally I would have moments when I could float…
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The word “pink” has a special place in my heart.
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Hairy kneecaps. The first time my body became “my body”—a thing separate from me—was at 6thgrade lunch period when Valerie Warner informed me Pete Harris would never date me because I had hairy kneecaps. She’d asked him about me, and his answer, given in the presence of the other 7thgrade boys, had been, according to…
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I grew up never liking my name. It wasn’t that my name was anything unusual or difficult to pronounce. I was just never fond of it. I remember sitting in school as my teachers would “call roll” imagining that my name would have been one of my fellow classmates. When you have a three syllable…
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“I don’t need you, MOM! I don’t need you!” I hear this screamed by a large, fit, and well-dressed man. He is a study in contradiction. He has a large pack which suggests to me that he could be homeless. He is huge, more than six feet tall. He appears mentally ill. He is screaming…
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As a child, a dark closet was the safest ground to play with my dolls. My mother was not a cruel woman, but she didn’t play, nor did she give room for anything other than work. She grew up in the aftermath of the Great Depression with a mother who gave two of her children…
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