cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
Last month my 88-year-old mother moved into an assisted living facility located 4.5 miles from my house. This is four miles further than we’ve lived from each other for the past nine years. While it may sound like a negligible change, it feels much more significant, for this half-mile has been traversed far more often…
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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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“I think about today. I think about tomorrow. I don’t give much thought to yesterdays.” — Yellowstone Our relationship has been far from easy. Unkind words have been exchanged and mean looks used to play a part whenever we communicated, but there have also been words of love, kindness, and support followed by a hug…
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In honor of the tenth anniversary of Red Tent Living, we are featuring a monthly legacy post written by one of our regular contributors from the past decade. Becky Allender is one of the original Red Tent writers; she’s been with us since 2013. Her voice has offered the blessing of a matriarch and been…
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2007 was the year I began to write. I wrote to name things I had carried around inside for too long without voice being given to them. I wrote to tell myself my own story. It was also the year my oldest daughter graduated from high school and my youngest daughter turned one. I felt…
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When I was in my mid 20s, a woman at church, who was just a few years older than me, had gone home to bury her mother; her father had died a few years earlier. “I am an orphan,” she said upon her return. I thought it was one of the oddest things I had…
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Once upon a time there was a girl named Sunny. They called her Sunny because of her golden hair and smile and the way she would light up a room when she entered. And the light emanated from her, and the light was good. Sunny’s mother was named Gilda. Gilda had discovered when she was…
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Her eyes feel heavy as she comes into consciousness. She rolls her head a bit and feels the soft, silk pillow against her cheek. Her mind tries to locate where she is, but all she can muster is the thought, “What a long sleep this has been.” Little does she know that she hasn’t been sleeping for…
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My son was four years old the first time he had an opinion about his hair. His thick blond hair bounced up and down as he ran, and it brought me absolute delight. When he asked to shave it off, my heart sank. I allowed myself to explore the unusually strong feelings I was experiencing,…
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It is less than twenty-four hours into my daughter’s visit and things are tense. My stomach churns as I begin to fear our next ten days together. I had high hopes for this visit.
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