cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
“You are becoming an Enneagram 7 in your second half of life,” my husband says with a knowing smile after I share my plans to apply for tickets to be in the studio audience of Saturday Night Live. As an Enneagram 2, I have spent hours during my first half of life reading people’s microexpressions…
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Staying in line is important when you are little. If kids get out of line and go their own way, things could get dicey. As the youngest of eleven kids, I learned to follow early. For me, following was easy and natural. You don’t have to think too hard, and you stay out of trouble…
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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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Alter Ego: The part of someone’s personality not usually seen by others. — Cambridge Dictionary This week I went away for five days to work on a writing project that I hope will emerge as book this year. In preparation I got some help to create a plan for how to spend my days as productively…
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There’s a voice in my head that assesses how I perform in the realm of conflict—a land often riddled with regrets, betrayals, and loss. I can always count on the voice to determine how things should have gone in any situation. To highlight the choices she would have made instead of the ones that I made.…
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We often sat in the little room that held the door to the elevator, blocked off by a small set of windows. The carpet wasn’t incredibly comfortable, just generic purple with a bit of a worn-down vibe. The room only saw high traffic on move-in weekends and with the occasional third-floor resident who was too…
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It’s a blurry line really, A delicate balancing act: Holding you, holding me. I’ve ignored you And denied you. Pretended you were someone else.
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I grew up in a small town in Northern Wisconsin. My neighborhood was filled with tightly-spaced brick homes with mature trees flanking both sides of the street. These were the days when everyone knew everybody and children walked to and from school without care or risk. I loved the long summer days when everyone was…
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“During Sabbath, we can listen with openness and curiosity…Here, voices can speak to us, voices we can only hear in the quiet. Only at rest can we hear what we have not heard before, and be led to what is most deeply beautiful, necessary, and true.” – Wayne Muller In the early afternoon of April…
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