cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
Only art penetrates the seeming realities of this world. There is another reality, the genuine one, which we lose sight of. This other reality is always sending us hints, which without art, we can’t receive. – Saul Bellow During my freshman year of college, I decide to register for a drawing class. We meet every…
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No topic is off limits in the operating room. While we reconstruct, remove, or generally alter various body parts, my coworkers and I open up about our own lives and bodies to a backdrop of 80s love songs. Over time, I’ve realized that health care professionals are completely desensitized to topics that might wig out…
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We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole. –Mark Strand You should see my house right now. I’m writing this from my bed, which is now merely a mattress on the ground, and I’m surrounded by cardboard boxes and half-packed belongings. Fine white dust covers the hardwood floors along every baseboard,…
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To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work. – Mary Oliver A few evenings before Christmas I moseyed into my daughter’s bedroom where my husband had set up camp, ferociously wrapping the stocking stuffers he’d purchased from the dollar store. I’d finished most of my preparations for the holidays, and the kids were…
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It’s mid-December, and the children have left in a flurry for the bus stop. I stand in the kitchen, refill my coffee cup, and survey the damage before I get ready for work. The counter is covered with almost every condiment from the fridge and pantry—every base of breakfast and lunch prep covered. There are…
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Her beauty is an expired passport that once took her many places, her wrinkled fingers flip back through its thinning pages.
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When you’re a child you learn there are three dimensions Height, width and depth Like a shoebox Then later you hear there’s a fourth dimension Time –Ron Padgett My husband knows I’m in a bad place emotionally when I start texting him Zillow listings of houses for sale. He knows the situation is especially severe…
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“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.” – Rainer Maria Rilke A few weeks ago, as I drove my son to camp, he asked, “Mommy, how much did I cost?”…
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Several months ago I received a text from my friend, Christina, inviting me to a Mother’s Day luncheon at her home. The word “luncheon” immediately conjured images of ladies dressed in lace, pearls, and hats belonging to British royalty. After a lengthy career as a military physician, Christina now has the time to pour her…
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Be curious, not judgmental…Re-examine all that you have been told… dismiss that which insults your soul…And your very flesh shall be a great poem. –Walt Whitman I’ve never met anyone more boring and miserable than Christians. Seriously, no one seems to hate life more than Christians. In fact, the church made me hate humanity. Ugh…did…
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