Do I deserve to feel safe when I run alone? YES.
I was halfway through my mile warmup, an easy jog down to my sons’ elementary school and back, hugging the curb of low-traffic neighborhood streets, when it slammed into the quiet morning: the honk heard round the world. It happens occasionally. Someone will see me—a...
How Books Shape Us: an Inventory of an Author’s Influences
I was an avid reader as a child. My mother would take us to our county library that was a fifteen-minute drive down two highways, and I’d stack the books as high as I could carry and take them all home and read them in less than a week. I read every Ramona book, Anne...
Stop, Stare, Marvel, No Matter How Late You Are
It’s time to go! We were on our way out the door, running late as usual, because two of them couldn’t find their shoes. One of my least favorite activities, when we’re running late anywhere, is spending time on the Shoe Search—mostly because I can’t get deeply enough...
Rediscovering Who You Are: a Short Contemplation
I’ve started running again. It began with a handful of miles—three or four, then quickly escalated to the six I used to run in college, when I would get up every day at five a.m. and run six miles before classes. My body remembers the routine; it’s moved back into the...
Gratitude May Not Cure Burnout, But it Helps
I’ve been feeling burned out lately. It’s a carryover from the end of the year, sliding into the new year, though I took two weeks off work to read and spend time with my kids and relax. It’s not the work that has me so burned out; in fact, work, right now, feels like...
The Distance Between Us is Not So Far
My grandmother used to save newspaper articles and clippings from Reader’s Digest (the large-print edition in later years) for the different people in her life. She’d hand me manila envelopes with cutouts paper-clipped together—about the lives of writers, the state of...
The Importance of Remembering Your Purpose
The other day my husband and I were finishing dinner for our sons, and I, having come off a high from my current work in progress, which finally hit its sweet spot after two weeks of struggling, said, “I don’t know if I’ve said this recently, but I really, really love...
The Wonder of Storms: a Philosophical Reflection
Lightning illuminates the window, like a scary film’s opening. Husband and I look at each other. We can already tell it’s going to be a bad one. Which means… Knock knock knock It begins. Over the next half hour, they are in and out of our room, racing between the gaps...
The Beauty of a Motherly Moment: a Short Meditation
He languished by the lamp, head drooping, book in his hand. I sat beside him. “You feeling okay?” I said. I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from him. He didn’t even speak; he only shook his head. I could feel the heat radiating from his skin; he had...
On Hope, the Thing with Fluttering Feathers
After my traditionally published book released last September, once the dust settled, I was feeling depressed and out of sorts. Part of it could be explained away by the demands on my time and the fact that I am an introvert who gets somewhat annoyed when my schedule...