cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
I found them gathered on the back deck. PJ pants, hoodies, and hot cups of coffee in hand, my four daughters were circled up and telling stories to one another. The seventeen years that separates them is starting to feel less difficult to close, especially today as the topic at hand is their bodies. The…
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When I bought a hanging pot of pansies last October, it was to replace a broken bird feeder that squirrels kept raiding. We moved the bird feeder to a more rodent-proof spot but were left with an empty porch hook—a spot for hanging flowers, I decided. The pansies were dark purple and glorious. Their pot…
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Mom leaned her head out from the balcony of the InterContinental Paris Le Grand. “You can practically hear the joy out in the streets!” she exclaimed. She was right, of course. Paris is always bright, but at Christmas time, it twinkles, and all of the cars, pedestrians, and little shops seem to twinkle with it.…
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Shades of pink stretched across the horizon and the air was thick and warm. Mark and I had a plate of nachos between us and had chosen to sit outside despite the heat. Her text dropped onto my phone around 6 p.m., “Thinking of you today, and holding this day 18 years ago.” As I…
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I finger the three separate baggies in my hand. They contain the remains of my father (age 95; died February 16, 2019), my mother (age 96; died July 22, 2020), and my youngest brother, John (age 64; died February 19, 2022). My two older sisters and I gather on the Oregon coast to celebrate the…
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Twelve-plus years of pain, longing for relief. Some would say that I do not own the pain. Technically, they would be correct. My body does not own the pain; still, it ravages me. My husband grapples with a disease that demands daily attention to pain and loss. Sometimes the volume is turned down, but it…
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I recently had to undergo eye surgery. The recovery for this surgery was such that I could not open either of my eyes for nearly four days. Now, as I look back on that time, I am realizing I could’ve relished it a bit more. But for this highly extroverted people person and Enneagram 3…
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I walked into the classroom feeling a sense of anticipation, my first in-person class in almost two years after COVID forced my graduate program online. Eager to finally see my classmates, I looked around the room expectantly, finding a few familiar faces and quite a few I didn’t recognize. Knowing that group assignments were on the…
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It was a profound moment for me. As I sat staring at my peanut butter-smudged computer screen, wincing from the glare to try to look her as directly in the eyes as possible, I wondered to myself: What little suns does my life orbit around? Spiritual direction is new for me. As I progress through…
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The queen’s calling is to hold the weight of the present as it begs us for a way forward as we navigate life in our beautifully broken world. I write and talk a lot about the archetype of the queen and have come to see her as a part of all of us that is…
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