Grandparenting: When It’s Hard to Honor Your Father and Mother

My Mother-In-Law Beth Meeting My Grandson, Sawyer, Age Ten Weeks. January, 2011. It happened one Christmas. My daughter Elaine, who was eight or nine, and I were among the guests at my grandfather’s house. We lingered at the table, deconstructing the endless ephemera that, in my family, goes with coffee. We were a congenial group of […]


I’m Taking Back My Tulips!

Relinquishing A Wound Yesterday at the grocery store I dared to admire the tulips. Audaciously waiting just inside the front door, they stood like trollops draped in shades of  Easter candy: babycheek pink, duckling yellow, Lladró lavender. Stems held the blooms erect above their brazen leaves. Not even one proud tulip bowed toward her nourishing soil. Glory, I thought as […]


The Topknot and the Tackle Box

  A Parable of the Open Hand Once upon a time, a woman kept her cosmetics in a tackle box. A train case seemed boldly self-indulgent. No, a good, sturdy tackle box was just the thing. It had taken seven years of healing for her to dare to dream again of beauty.  The tackle box, somehow, eased […]


My Tongue Still Smolders

I’d Like My Speech to be This Beautiful. The Taming of My Tongue, Part TwoIf you’ve been reading here for a while, you might remember the tale I shared back in March about my bout with thrush, of all things, and how it helped me work on a sinful habit: unkind speech. [Yes, I know […]


Chasing Silhouettes: Guest post by Emily Wierenga

[My friend Emily Wierenga blogs at Imperfect Prose and at Chasing Silhouettes. Today she’s sharing about her forthcoming book, Chasing Silhouettes: How to Help a Loved One Battling an Eating Disorder.]  The Skinny on the Book by E. Wierenga The nurses murmured to each other under fluorescent lighting as I lay shivering on the metal […]