cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
Just inside the front door of my childhood home is a large built-in bookcase my father made when my parents bought their first house. On the nearby coast, my mother found a beautiful piece of driftwood to fill its center space, making the uniquely shaped object the focal point in our living room. Anything of…
Read More
A few months into our relationship, my high school boyfriend started calling me, “Mallorina, my Queena.” As a 16-year-old, I’m not sure there was a nickname more flattering than this one. Actually, 38-year-old Mallory really wouldn’t mind answering to it, either. It was young love, but I knew my boyfriend adored me and went out…
Read More
I’m on the hunt for a church community. I can’t in good conscience identify church as a need anymore. Just shy of two years into this pandemic and I recognize that learning, worshiping, seeking justice, and building community with the same group of people, and then weathering disagreements with those people with grace isn’t something…
Read More
“For the opposite of clinging is not letting go but cherishing. This is the goal of the practice of humility. That having a “light grasp” on life prepares the way for cherishing what is right in front of us.” ― Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship, Gregory Boyle Dear Colleague, This year,…
Read More
“Please stop watching.” The round, green eyes of my traveling companion flash as she whispers these words toward me. We are sitting in a crowded, delayed airplane stuck on the runway. Hot, stuffy, and impossibly close. Bodies of all sizes are wadded into same-sized seats like so many sausage parts stuffed into casings. The man next to me,…
Read More
It is currently January 14th, two weeks into the new year, and I have not written down a single goal. That is highly unlike me. I love setting my intention for the year. I love lists of things to accomplish and milestones to help get me over the finish line. I usually buy the new…
Read More
Considering the avid reader I was during my childhood and adolescence, it still surprises me that I never read The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. It wasn’t until the theatrical release of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in 2005 that I finally took my first trip to Aslan’s country. I remember feeling…
Read More
There was one Halloween in elementary school when I dressed up as a bride. I had a long white dress and a lace veil covering my face, though nothing about my costume could cover the beauty I felt while walking down the concrete aisle to every front door in my neighborhood, building myself a candy…
Read More
The highlight of Thanksgiving for me last year included time spent with my daughter, Katie, who moved to Washington, D.C. a year ago. Since moving, she’s made the 11-hour solo drive back to Michigan on several occasions. Each time, I feel a simultaneous concern for her safety, alongside awareness of her capability, an awareness that…
Read More
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…
Read More