http://cdn.tss.uproxx.com/TSS/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/the-great-gatsby-2012.jpg I love going to the movies. Despite all that Netflix and Amazon have to offer, there is something so simply great about going to the cinema and sitting there in the dark, releasing yourself to the larger-than-life narrative unfolding on the screen. I love it. One of the best classes I took in college […]
Read moreI love you. You probably find this hard to believe, but really, really and truly, I love you. You are my Absolute Favorite of All the Appliances in the House. I know, I know. The crimes I commit against you are legion. Like leaving you out all the time, plugged in or not, languishing in […]
Read moreBy now we’ve seen the photos and the videos; we’ve read the interviews. In the video I watched, the thing came bearing down unstoppable, a thick, gray column, opaque and faceless, an all-powerful horror. Forty minutes isn’t terribly long, but it was more than enough. It left a swath of destruction that staggers the mind: […]
Read moreIt was a while ago now that he came in to the kitchen and stood next to me where I was stirring something on the stove.“Mom,” he said, “there are things about me that you don’t know.”“You’re right,” I said. He might have been nine or ten years old. I wondered at the time if […]
Read moreYes, this is a familiar feeling. I recognize it– and I don’t like it. I would imagine, too, that it’s almost universal: that sense of having a deadline, Something Due, and so everything else must wait, or take a back seat to it, anyway. Of course, deadlines are helpful. Even necessary. I have talked about […]
Read moreIt’s taken me a long time to call myself a writer. Even now, after almost nine months of writing basically full-time, I always hesitate. How does it work, you know? I mean, does the fact that I have a sprig of rhubarb planted in my herb garden make me a farmer? I don’t think so. […]
Read moreI think some parents will do all kinds of things in order to spend time with our kids. We schlep them ourselves to soccer tournaments, rather than car-pooling, maybe, for that priceless car-talk-time. We sit on the edges of their beds in the dark, listening despite our (and her) late-night fatigue, because now is the time she […]
Read moreThere was a dinner plan. The spinach was thawing in its pie plate on the counter; the grocery stop would only take a minute. We would be eating (after the soccer game) by 6:30. And then the plan was changed: Bill and I would go out; the kids would be eating at home. And so […]
Read moreI attended our church’s women’s retreat this weekend. It was a beautiful time: so many women I know– and many others I don’t– gathered to enjoy one another, to learn more about our God, to rest from the pull of our daily lives. I remember going on youth group retreats when I was a teenager. […]
Read moreLike everyone else, I was surprised and dismayed to hear Monday’s news: the bombs detonating, the screams and smoke, the aftermath. Amputations, shrapnel and surgeries because you went to see them cross the finish line. Three of them dead, all of them somebody’s child. After three days worth of radio news, I was nonetheless surprised […]
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