Time stops in the dark. Before dawn, it yawns and stretches. Putters. Lingers. Moseys. Puts on coffee. And sits. Waits. Makes room. I remember endless time before clocks and counting, when the first day of school and the last were drawn out like Highway 16, Macon to Savannah. Nowyearscram instead of c r a w… Continue reading Four Thirty
The nest is empty. Our last fledgling is settled into college dorm life and has already slept through his first test, while his mama-bird, blissfully unaware, awoke to her to-do-or-not-to-do list, none of it involving him. I've been preparing Stone his whole life--and myself all year--for when he would be washing his own socks and… Continue reading The Purge
I ordered my dream bed from a shop on Etsy, a carved and distressed French Victorian fit for a king and queen...or wannabes. I ordered it in late February and received it sixteen weeks later, a sign that unless the New Jersey shop owners were felling trees and building beds on demand, my bed was… Continue reading The Bed That Wouldn’t Fit
If Mama were still alive this Mother's Day, I'd have a hard time finding the card I'd most want to send her. I would have to make my own, and it would say: "Thank you, Mama, that we didn’t discover any skeletons." That's a Mother's Day greeting I'll bet has yet to appear on any… Continue reading Making Arrangements
Mama is dying. I’m sitting in her bedroom next to her hospital bed, the metal rail cold against my leg. The oxygen tube is bothering her and Vicky, her caregiver, is adjusting it as I write. “That better, Martha?” Mama moans. Mama normally reads a page from her devotional every night with Vicky. When I… Continue reading Troubling Ourselves
October 18 Dear Rock Creek Women-in-their-PJ's, It's late. Probably most of you are in your beds, cozy and comfortable, sifting through the day's events as you drift off to sleep. That's where I'm heading after I hit send. But before I do, I want to sift through the events that happened here, and tell you… Continue reading Sifting
October 3 Dear Struggling-or-Dead Rock Creek Women, In response to learning that a friend had started a prayer group for another friend who was struggling, a third friend said to me, "Well, if you're not struggling, you're dead!" How fitting a segue that is as I sit down this week to dash off this quick… Continue reading Brightened and Fed
