Tag: life
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What Writing Feels Like
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” This quote, famously, if perhaps erroneously attributed to Earnest Hemingway, resonates with writers, myself included, for a reason. Not to prop up the myth that we must be suffering artists, for whom writing and living a creative life is…
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Finding the Beauty Through the Weeds
I’ve written before about my affinity towards weeds – their persistence, their unconventional beauty, their unsung purpose. But there can also be a dark side to weeds, a literal choking out of light. Weeds, seemingly innocuous at first, can grow so thick and fast that it makes thriving, or even surviving, impossible for other important…
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The Great Unfurling of Growing Up
Eight years. Eight years since I crossed the holy threshold of birth to become a mother. Dreams brought to life with the great ache of joy; quivering, squeezing, stretching until I emerged as something wholly new, holding someone holy and new. And now, through the creeping crawl of the days and the great strides of…
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What it Means to Live a Creative Life
For the longest time, I didn’t consider myself a creative person. Though I loved to explore the world and my mind with curiosity, follow inspiration, and make new and different things, it never felt like enough. Unless I had published a book or released a song or had art displayed in a gallery or poetry…
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Love Affairs
I’m a romantic in my soul. Led by eyes of wonder and a heart that changes with the tides of emotion, I can easily find myself falling, falling. Spiraling into an unanticipated love affair. I’ve only ever loved one man, and I’m lucky enough to have married him. But places. The new and different and…
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Ten Reasons To Travel Solo With Kids
More than two weeks have passed since our van pulled into the driveway, the kids excitedly jumping out and scrambling to find their long-lost favorite toys. The days that have gone by since then have been a blur of unpacking and laundry, restocking the house with necessities, breaking up sibling squabbles when our house full…
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Love and Loss
This morning, as I was baking a cake and doling out spoonfuls of batter to eager little mouths and orchestrating a silly celebration for my younger daughter’s half-birthday, millions of other women were marking this day with much less joyous memories. October 15th is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, and the entire month of…
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Taking Note from Nature
‘Tis the season for hustle and bustle, for stress and excess. Meanwhile, the natural world quiets, slows down, and turns inward. Meanwhile, bears and bugs hibernate, leaves fall from trees in a not-so-subtle suggestion to let go of that which no longer serves. Meanwhile, our busy bodies fight against their own natural urges. There are…
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My Darlings, I Delight in You
My Darlings, I hope you know, deep in your heart, how much I delight in you. I hope you see it. I hope you see past my tired eyes and my distracted mind. I hope you see the love and pride and joy that resides within those weary eyes. I hope you see how they…
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The Last Summer Days
This week has started to feel like fall here in our neck of the woods, with cool mornings that call for a sweatshirt alongside a warm cup of coffee and the sweet song of crickets singing us to sleep at night. Officially the season will shift in a couple days. As leaves begin to cascade…
The Small Wanders 