Story
One can bear anything if one can put it in a story. - Isak Dinesen
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Paris: Our Trip & Tips
It didn’t begin with a lifelong goal of seeing the Eiffel Tower. It started with an email alert. “Low cost fairs from Asheville to Paris” It was an update from my Going account – the same account that helped me take my London to London for her graduation gift last year. It was back in October and the flight was too good to pass up and those truly amazing deals go lightning fast so I didn’t waste any time. I looked around my house and said, “Who wants to go to Paris with me? This is not a required family vacation. This is a spontaneous(ish) opportunity and if you want…
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A Heart’s Home: Lost Valley Ranch
Of course it’s not fair. And as a new friend at the ranch last week told me, “My mom always said – Fair is a place where pigs get ribbons.” Her mom is right. I recognize that it is privilege and good fortune (and the divine plan of God) that has landed me and five kids at a four diamond luxury working ranch for the past five summers. The word that perhaps best describes our awareness of this is grateful. Just endlessly grateful. Deep and immense gratitude. Our regularly scheduled week in May was cancelled. When the ranch was allowed to open in June, we assumed that we just missed…
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story: listen for it
We’re all telling the same story – aren’t we? Isn’t it the only one that matters? The story of ourselves, sure. The particulars might belong to us. The shading and the scent, the hue and the timing. But it’s never been just our story. It is all of history’s story – all of humanity. The ones before. The ones right now. The ones after. It’s the same story that happened to me more than ten years ago in the mountains of North Carolina in a week long writing class. I was relatively new at my mothering gig – four kids, three under the age of four. My first time leaving…
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holiday tears: doing the best we can
It’s always unexpected. And yet. It’s right on time. It was an average Sunday morning. Not one of our better ones. Call it holiday grumpies or the price of too many late nights or the stress of getting it “all” accomplished, but the atmosphere at our home was anything but cherry and light. Bells weren’t ringing and chestnuts weren’t roasting. Attitudes stunk. I was pretty confident that I was doing my part to raise what might be the world’s most selfish children. I also felt the need to let those children know their trajectory toward that end goal. My sprained ankle made it difficult for me to take a walk…
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swimming in the deep end
It all feels like it’s already been said. All the words have been taken. The ones about exhaustion and anxiety. About despair and waiting. The posts about overworking and not enough sleep have all been written. Balance – we get it – it’s elusive. Time management – we understand – it’s tricky. Self care – we know – it’s important. I’m a broken record over here. My friends and I, over tea or crepes, through deep sighs and understanding arm pats, we say we hear you, we see you, we ARE you. We’re all singing the same song, paddling the same canoe, weathering the same storms. We are all tired.…
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I don’t understand
Tuesday happened. Like it’s been doing each week for a long time. And I woke up and I looked at Facebook and I saw a post about a former student. A fellow I knew when he was in my high school English class. Maybe fifteen years ago. On the right track. A good kid. Honest. Reliable. Responsible. Likable and kind. He grew up. He got married. He had three children. And this week, on a drive home from another state, he was in a car accident. He didn’t survive. And neither did his two daughters. His wife and their son are fighting for their lives. And I do not understand.…
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Scary Close: A Book Review (& some feelings this book unearthed as well)
It was just sitting on the shelf at the library when I was looking for something else. Donald Miller. Scary Close. I haven’t read anything by this author in ages. Last two novels I read of his – Blue Like Jazz and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years – felt like I read them in another life. Which – technically, I did. Impulsively, I grabbed it and added it to the stack. Books about the Grand Canyon, the National Parks, Nelson Mandela, the Empire State Building, Twilight (yeah, that’s what one of my kids picked up), drawing guides, a couple Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and this Donald…
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My Friend Mary & The Beauty of Showing Up
I think Riley was in high school when our family met Mary. At that time, if I have my story straight, she was serving as a youth leader. Her love for the kids at our church and her compassion for my daughter drew me to her immediately. One very bizarre and unusual Thanksgiving, we even enjoyed a quiet and restorative meal together – just the two of us – due to highly unusual circumstances in both of our own lives. We attended a Bible study called Haven together. And, there’s likely more that I am forgetting. Here’s my point – she’s a truly lovely human, both inside and out (she’s…
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the dangers of dating as a single mom (or as a single dad, but you know – I write what I know)
There are so many directions this post could take. But I’m going to just head in one for today. Let’s talk about the drought problem. You know, when you have running water at your house, you don’t think about running water – right? When everything is as it should be and you take a shower in the morning, do you find yourself very grateful for that water? Eh. Maybe if you’re a really grateful kind of human – sure. But likely, you don’t think about it at all. You don’t praise God for tap water when you fill your coffee pot. You don’t lift up praise hands when the toilet…
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single and other conditions
Life is just hard. Being married is hard. Being single is hard. I tell my teenagers – being human is hard. Someone recently asked me, but were you lonely even when you were married? Yes. Sometimes. Sometimes I was. And I have one friend whose foster son doesn’t want to go and doesn’t want to stay. Can’t find the yes and can’t find the no. What sort of world allows an eight year to feel so broken? I had coffee with a person recently and he shared stories of his youth and they were true and they were some kind of awful and he’s living through them all and…
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holiday season. not for the faint of heart.
Some nights you complete a puzzle at 1 am with your daughters and you know the price everyone will pay for staying up so late but you also know the moment is necessary and worthwhile, has value and importance. And that’s the horse you are betting on. Some nights you head to your bedroom and a boy and a puppy are cuddled into your space already and you know that it is Gift Enough for the moment. Navigating holidays in divorced families, blended families, step families, broken families, dysfunctional families is like walking across a room strewn full of Legos barefoot at 1 am in…
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it’s alright . . .
Because we are downsizing, GET RID OF IT has been a mantra I have been embracing. Or, you know, at least trying to embrace. And I’ve given away, sold and tossed so very very many bits of this and that. As I am going through old boxes and high school journals (they’re not going away, so don’t think I’m ditching that goldmine for future novels that I’ll be writing in my “retirement”) I am finding stacks and scads of memories and treasures and trinkets and junk too. It’s reminded me of a lot of truths. Some that taste a little bitter going down, some that remind me…
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official sort of news. hint – it’s about a house.
Telling a story is like reaching into a granary full of wheat and drawing out a handful. There is always more to tell than can be told. ― Wendell Berry This is a story that deserves a back story (and a rabbit trail or two) and it would best be delivered on a front porch with a breeze and a glass of lemonade. This is a story of waiting and of hope deferred, of generosity and community. This is a story of Not This, but That, second choice and different than expected. This is a beautiful story. It’s mine, but in the same way that we all come to…
