I 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 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 more“a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction….” — Virginia Woolf A long, lazy drive to Charlottesville, taking nearly all back roads and finding myself (I recognized it before I read the sign) at the entrance to Somerset Farm. It wasn’t where I was going, but I headed up […]
Read moreEvery morning you climb several flights of stairs, enter your study, open the French doors, and slide your desk and chair out into the middle of the air. The desk and chair float thirty feet from the ground, between the crowns of maple trees. The furniture is in place; you go back for your thermos […]
Read more[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/39439897 w=400&h=300] I have never felt that his was my story to tell. I had the privilege of being his teacher for only a few short months, you see, and that is nowhere near long enough to discover anyone, let alone this bright-eyed boy, this sometimes seven-year-old-wonder in a fourteen-year-old body. Like anyone else, […]
Read moreYou have been at work for some time when he gets home. It’s the sort of day that has found you in the work and then necessarily away from it and then back at it again, exhilarated and discouraged by turns. This is good work; this is bad; this is god-awful in a way that […]
Read moreI went to my 25th high school reunion on Saturday. Of the handful of reunions our class has held over the years, it was the first I’ve managed to attend. We all know how it goes: in the fullness that becomes our every-day lives, escape to something like this might be unattainable indulgence, especially if– […]
Read moreI am so grateful to be at home. I love seeing how the sun falls in the breakfast room in a silent house at 2 p.m. on a September Wednesday. I love having the laundry done, so that kids who dirtied their uniforms only yesterday have them spanking clean and ready to go today. I […]
Read moreor “Mother,” Part II It shouldn’t be so hard. Really, on paper, it looks for all the world like it makes sense. Which isn’t to say that I’ve actually written it down. I haven’t actually recorded on paper my Plan For The Day. But I do have a Plan. I have a Plan that should […]
Read moreThe day was looking good. Kids breakfasted and lunches bagged, they went off together to school. I had only one item on my calendar before the late afternoon’s rash of meets/games/matches, and yes, it appeared that a good writing day was ahead of me. An excellent writing day. I love those. Writing is, after all, […]
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