My whole body is goosebumps as I hear the songs I listened to secretly on my Walkman, late at night as my parents would fight outside my room. These songs made me feel like I wasn’t the only person who thought things weren’t right in this world.
Read MoreFriends always ask me how I am able to buy the bulk size produce for a family of four without it going bad before we finish it. This is how I do it.
Read MoreThere is a sense of surrender in Joy that is different than its lesser, tamer cousin, happiness. Joy, that next level of happiness, is when we let go
Read MoreFor the past 5 years, I have ran or walked 3 miles nearly every morning at 6am.
It is the same 3 miles. The exact same route. This is just one of the ways my OCD rears it’s head. I used to apologize for it but when you do the same things, the same way, at the same time every day, you begin to notice that others do too. They just don’t publicize it.
Read MoreIt was not his style that he is remembered for, he wore a bright blue utilitarian painter smock every day, but his simplicity, his impartiality and most of all his joy of life.
Read MoreThese survival skills morphed into actuality as I realized I had learned along the way how to adapt quickly to new situations. I size up situations quickly and adjust accordingly. Always, always act like you belong in the place you find yourself, even if you don’t.
Read MoreSome of us realize that we just aren’t as dazzling or special as we thought we were going to be, myself included. Life gets in the way. There is always someone prettier, smarter, more successful, someone who shines brighter.
Read MoreMy 5-year-old son and I are sitting side by side on the couch reading. I with Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood, a book I should have read long ago and he another A-Z Mystery. I have a bag of chips on my left and every few pages he raises his hand out, without speaking for another chip. My 7-year-old is elsewhere in the house, probably in the smallest space between two pieces of furniture, curled up with his own book.
Read MoreThis summer will be the 5th that I host a summer time Happy Hour on my deck. As one of the kids who regularly attends put it, “You know, Happy Hour! Where kids play and the grown-ups have a glass of wine”.
Read MoreIf he would have been embarrassed or his eyes filled with tears, my reaction would have been more compassionate. But he was tickled that such a calamity happened! He knew mommy would take care of it.
Read MoreMy precious boy with the name of a gladiator …or a dictator…not sure which. Your father told me your name on our 3rd date. I had the feeling it was a deal breaker for whether or not we’d move forward. I loved the rich history of the name of two of your great-great grandfathers before you.
Read MoreI started when my boys were quite young.
My sons, 16 months apart, needed me at every 5-minute interval…or both at the same time.
I started to see the days meld into one another, an endless sea of diapers and yoga pants. I needed something, even just one thing to set them apart. Each night before sleep, I’d write that one thing down in my journal. That one thing I could hold on to for that day.
Read MoreNo music. No singing. These were not women who would pat my red head as I passed them by or give me a little squeeze. They didn’t pop a piece of ripe cantaloupe in their mouth as they chopped. They simply cut, chopped, diced, sorted into dixie bowls. This was the morning snack for the Vacation Bible School kids, including me. Fruit I normally would not have a home. Fresh fruit that was not from a tree in our yard was a treat, a luxury. I looked forward to 10am when I’d be passed one of these bowls along with a little plastic fork. Was it duty? Was it a job that needed to be done so they signed up to do it? Was it an act of service to God? Not sure which but with each bite, I felt loved.
Read MoreSinger song writer, Ryan Adams says "Whenever I’m stuck when I’m writing, I could just put a Smiths record on, and it’s kind of like if my songwriting was an iPhone, it recharges it in like, five minutes.” I understand. The Smiths do the same for me in whatever mood I am feeling.
Read MoreStaff got used to seeing me and watching the boys grow. In the midst of the isolation and exhaustion that only a Stay-At-Home-Mom of two toddler boys would understand, I was thankful for the few moments of adult conversation as staff would comment on the boys.
Read MoreThe first thing you notice is just how quiet is it. You become self-conscience, aware how loud every thud of your foot hitting the pavement. You are an elephant in a monastery. You take smaller, quieter steps reminding yourself you are not in a rush.
Read MoreIt doesn’t take much to connect, sometimes just making an effort.
Read MoreNow married for well over a decade, with our own home, I take walks with our boys, blissfully plucking rosemary from front yard walkways. The scent reminds me of falling in love, dreaming of this life we would build together. I hand a bit over for my sons to smell. I wonder what memories the scent will conjure up for them.
Read MoreIt was heartbreaking. I could sense the desperation, not only in trying to recreate the original painting but to recreate that place of peace and stability he had just one year ago. He longed for a home, to belong and had it for fleeting moment. The pang to paint it for if he could, he would be able to conjure it up again, capture it.
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A few months before my 25th birthday I found myself fat and dumped. I had to move out of the cottage that we shared and move into a series of temporary living situations that I hated. In an effort to get out of the house and shed some of the extra pounds I took up running.
Anyone who knew me before age 25 might find this comical. I was never sporty and had such a severe case of asthma that a good joke could send me into a dreadful attack. Yet I needed an outlet, something to get me through the pain of the break up and the stress of moving forward alone.
I began at the start of summer, in the evenings after work. At first I could not run past two driveways on the suburban sidewalks without having to stop to catch my breath. By the end of the summer, I was running two miles without stopping. My asthma has rarely bothered me since.
In the 15 plus years since I have taken up running, I have moved to 3 different states. Travelled to many others on vacation. Nothing thrills me more than to explore my new surroundings by lacing up my shoes. I have run Central Park in NYC, rural Easter Oregon and Downtown Los Angeles.
When I lived in a loft in Downtown LA, I would run each evening before dinner. My husband and I lived in a loft located adjacent to Skid Row where I worked with homeless women and children. Each evening as I would run, the men who lived in cardboard boxes and tents along Spring Street would call out, “Here she is, right on time! You can set a clock to her”. They’d clap and cheer as if I was in a marathon as I ran by. One time I turned the corner and into the exhale of a man smoking PCP. The route took me through the spectrum of social classes as I would run up Grand Ave, pass Disney Hall. Men in tuxes and women in diamonds would stand at the crosswalk with me as they walked from dinner across the way to the symphony. Dripping with sweat I’d turn up the Jay—Z in my headphones, embarrassed at the contrast in our scent.
There was one incident that always stayed with me. Running near City Hall I noticed a young man, around 19, running parallel with me across the street. Small and wiry, he was sobbing and appeared to have metallic paint over his eyes, nose and mouth. He was running with determination toward the 101 freeway over pass. I increased my stride and crossed the street to meet him before he reached the overpass. “Hey!” I said with a small smile as I ran along side of him. “I am just so sad!” he screamed sobbing. We were on the bridge now. Without time to think I said “I know you are, sweetheart. I’m here. I’m listening.” I wanted to get him off that bridge. He was clearly high. “Let’s go sit down and talk”. Miraculously he back tracked back to City Hall with me and we sat for two seconds on a planter wall. He sobbed something incoherent, got up and ran down the street. I had a good 40 pounds on him, there was no way I was catching up and I thought to myself, “how far am I actually going to take this?” Shook up by the experience I went off to run an extra couple of miles.
I have slowed down in the past few years. Unable to run as fast or as far as I once did, running continues to not only, help me work out things in my own mind, but to see past myself to people I wouldn’t normally interact with in the rest of my day to day life. May I always be quick to see those around me.
Thrives on moments where storytelling, art and faith collide.
