The woman in 7D reads me an essay
she wrote for her husband in 7E
about how they first met at a party
when his hair was dark and thick.
He is bald now. She is gray, as am I,
but in those moments before take off
we three thrum with the thrill of that first
uncertain glimpse, and I enter the Hollywood
party with them, him in yellow suspenders,
her riding high on recent success.
They were strangers twenty minutes ago,
but now I am cheering for them—
for the people they were almost forty years ago
as they went out for coffee, then talked
through the night. Cheering, too, for who
they are now, no longer strangers, but Ellen and Bruce,
a writer and retired architect, who will likely
never remember meeting the woman in 7F,
but for tonight, something unspeakably lovely
happens as we fly over Chicago and Detroit
and we are woven into each other’s lives
for a few hours, a momentary plot full of laughter,
tenderness, and a spontaneous, shimmering joy,
while all around us the world goes dark.
Posts Tagged ‘story’
While Sitting in 7F
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged airplane, connection, joy, story, strangers, travel on June 13, 2026| 4 Comments »
The Day Before Graduation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, framing, graduation, love, parent, story, writing on May 27, 2026| 4 Comments »
for Vivian
Already she knows terrible things happen.
Already she knows the pleasure of scrambling
in the woods at night with friends and singing
too loud and making bad choices that are sometimes
exactly the right choices. She knows sobs and
silliness. She knows how much humans can hurt
each other. She knows how a touch or a tender
word erases nothing but creates its own plot of trust.
There was a time when my job was to protect her,
filling her pages with beauty and courage and honesty.
Now my job is mostly to love her, to give her her own pen.
Because terrible things happen. And she is the one now
who shapes her story. Every writer knows, we write
what we know—and what we can’t ever know.
I pray what emerges is the impossible—an irrational,
deep rooted love for this difficult, glorious world.
Seeing Through the Story
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged otter, perspective, story on April 27, 2026| 5 Comments »
What I wanted was to snuggle.
What I wanted was to greet
the morning wrapped in warmth.
What was here was coolness.
I spooled myself in a gloomy story wondering
what I’d done wrong to find myself alone.
Two days before, when I was radiant
with joy in a circle of friends,
I pulled an otter card from a deck
and felt wildly attuned with the otter’s spirit
of contentment and “unobstructed joy.”
The wisdom of otter says stop making
“silly excuses.” The wisdom of otter
says “celebrate.” It was only after
I rose from the bed and walked into
the damp chill of a misty spring morning—
the air alive with the song of chickadees,
the harsh calls of the jays, the rapid twittering
of the violet green swallows—
it was only then I felt the possibility of reverence
and celebration. And then, how silly I felt, somehow
seeing through the layer of story I added
to the morning, as if waking alone
was some kind of problem. How easy
it was then to celebrate walking alone
in the soft green of spring, my feet wet
in the grass, chill bumps on my arms.
Sweet woman, it’s okay you forgot
the chance for reverence was always here.
It is always the time for waking.
See now what was truly here this morning:
the room so quiet, the sheets so cool,
the soft gray light streaming in.
True Story
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, history, inclusion, knitting, story on March 30, 2026| 4 Comments »
“What on earth can we do to make this sad and beautiful world a little softer for everyone?” — Shannan Martin, The Ministry of Ordinary Places
Once there was a woman who knit.
She knit the sky and the cemetery,
narrow alleys and the deep sea, the highway
and the willow, starlight and the bare bulb.
It was not easy to slip such things onto her needles,
but she knew she could do hard things.
Of course, she doubted herself.
That did not stop her from knitting.
Every moment of every day, the chance
to add everything she saw and tasted, felt
and heard, into one blanket large enough
to touch everyone. It never was quite large enough,
though, she every day, she kept on knitting.
She could feel herself how silky, how cozy it was.
What makes softness is no secret. It is love.
Sometimes she dropped a stitch. Sometimes
she lost the pattern and had to start a row over.
Sometimes she had to make up something new.
But she knew what she had to do. Something. Anything.
Everything she could to make this sad and beautiful
world a little softer for everyone. There is no end
to the work she does. Every day, she picks
it up, admires the progress she’s made, worries
about the holes, starts her knitting again.
Fourteen Years Later I Remember
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged mother, Narnia, reading, restaurant, story on November 4, 2025| 8 Comments »
that morning in the Cajun restaurant
when the kids and I sat in the corner at a small
square table and after placing our breakfast order,
we arrived in Tashbaan at the home of the Tisroc,
following Shasta who had escaped being sold
as a slave. The waiter brought us eggs
and roasted potatoes tossed with thin slices
of softened red pepper and onion, splash of vinegar,
which we ate as we overheard the Tisroc discussing
the Narnian’s escape and the plans to kidnap
Queen Susan. It was hours after the waiter took
our plates, when the restaurant was fully empty,
that we re-emerged into the world of camping
and swim lessons, all of us fed by the magic of story,
a magic so potent I feel it still, not just the story
of Shasta, but the story of a mother and two children,
how they slipped into their own world, bodies leaning in
toward each other, hearts thundering, eyes bright.
One Encouraged by the Leaves
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged kite, letting go, self, story on October 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »
flying the story of myself
like a kite in the wind—
can I let go of the string
What Comes Next
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged goodness, Palestine, peace, story, war on August 5, 2025| 13 Comments »
There’s a place in my brain where hate won’t grow.
—Naomi Shihab Nye, “Jerusalem”
The man in Palestine runs
toward airdropped parcels,
is shot in the back of his head.
The military says such a shot
was never fired. The dead man
does not argue back. His body
is carried away with medicine,
dried beans, sacks of flour.
How many more must weep?
This world. This world with its
guns and fear and righteousness.
Whether or not we hold the gun,
we all have a finger on a trigger.
What else can we do with our hands?
I want to believe in a goodness
that persists despite cruelty—
not a fairytale story with a wand
or a genie, but a real story in which
a real woman grows peaches and gives
them away for the joy of giving.
A story in which a man helps another
man build a home with a bed, an oven,
a roof. War comes so quickly.
Peace comes so slow. I want to believe
there is in all of us a place
where hate won’t grow.
I want to feed that place in myself.
I want to listen to that place in you.
I want us to live into another possible world,
discover what else our lives can do.
For Now
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged contentment, daughter, happily ever after, happiness, love, mother, movie, music, story on June 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Driving home from the movie,
our blood still charged with adrenaline,
my daughter and I move through
the dark just under the speed limit,
our eyes trained on the red taillights
in front of us, and we talk about plot holes
and how we would change the ending.
Neither of us would have chosen happily
ever after, which somehow felt false
to the greater story. It’s not long before
we’re singing along to her favorite song.
I harmonize on the chorus, and
a “Peaceful Easy Feeling” grows in me
as we drive through pouring rain.
I may not believe in happily ever after,
but I do believe in content for now,
as in this moment when she reaches
for my hand and I slide mine into hers.
I can’t see her face in the dark, but
in her voice, I can hear it, her smile.
Right Now, Mid-Story
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bookmark, college, daughter, mother, story on May 22, 2025| 2 Comments »
I am placing a bookmark on this page
in which my daughter and I drive
highways and turnpikes and green
curving backroads, singing
our way past tree farms and smoke
stacks, past sheep and cornfields,
grand estates and collapsed barn roofs,
this page on which, in every moment,
we are driving right up to the blank
edge where the story is still seeking
its setting and the narrator is still
seeking her voice and the page is
still seeking the fingers that will turn
it and those fingers are still so soft
as, with total trust, they hold my hand.
Practice in Being Present
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged geese, presence, snow, spring, story on March 18, 2025| 4 Comments »
As it is, I am grateful for the snow today,
though yesterday I reveled in the warm air
and clear blue sky that felt like spring.
Today still feels like spring, but with snow.
The geese still wander the field on foot,
a thick white layer gathering
on the wide gray platforms of their backs.
The swallows still soar and swoop
in tight formations, unbothered
by thick flakes of snow. The red-winged blackbirds
still trill. It seems only right the heart
should still practice how to fall in love,
no matter the weather. I am thinking of
how yesterday Wendy said of herself,
“What, did I think nothing bad would
ever happen to me?” and how just saying
this out loud helped her stay present—
less the story of herself, more herself.
I’m clear it does no good to wish away snow,
just as it does no good to wish away grief
or the tyranny of cruelty. So when thoughts
of grief and fear roll in like a squall,
I try out Wendy’s line.
What, did I imagine terrible things
wouldn’t happen to me? To the world?
The geese are sliding now into the pond,
the snowflakes disappearing
into dark water. With no effort,
I fall in love with the ripples
the geese leave on the surface,
a momentary story of where they’ve been.
How quickly that story disappears.
The Day Before Your Sixteenth Birthday
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birthday, daughter, love, mother, story on July 14, 2024| 7 Comments »
We float side by side on the pond for an hour—
you in a tube, me on a paddleboard,
both of us deep in our books.
But even immersed in another world,
I slip more deeply in love with this one
in which I’m your mother and you
my girl and our stories are woven
so closely together that even before
I flip the page of tomorrow, I know
for certain I will love you even more.
Making Space
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, erasure, love, story on April 27, 2024| 10 Comments »
My heart is an unfinished poem
I begin scribbling every morning.
By noon, I sign my name.
By night, the whole page is erased.
I used to lament the erasing.
Now I love the blank more
than any scribbles I could make.
To love you is to lose my story.
Sometimes, when I am brave,
the hand doing the erasing
is my own.
What the Self Really Wants
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, infinite self, naked, self, story, what is on March 18, 2024| 4 Comments »
When the story of self
slips off like a mask, the sky
is more sky and an apple
more apple and the self
less self and more
what a wind is. How easy
to love then when I’m naked.
And how is it that always
some new story arrives,
solidifies less like a cast,
more like a strait jacket?
I notice because life
starts to fit too tight.
I notice because
I start to think I’m right.
But it’s no failure when a story
appears. Just an invitation
to notice how it feels
to be dressed in a story.
An invitation to pray
to the mystery, please,
once again undress me.
An invitation to be grateful
for the hands (whose hands?)
that loosen the story
and free me. An invitation
to let the self remember this:
how it longs to be spacious,
to be as infinite as what is.
Still Changing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, grief, move, stillness, story on December 19, 2023| 7 Comments »
How seldom he was still,
more humaning than human,
more aliving than alive.
Mostly he was running
or jumping or lunging.
Mostly he was spinning
or flopping or dodging.
Even as he sat,
which he seldom did,
his leg was pumping,
his fingers fidgeting.
But there were times,
like when we snuggled on the couch
to read books,
when his whole body quieted
as if to better listen
to the story,
as if he was captive
to the characters’ struggles,
every cell of him rapt
to know what came next.
Now I see how active
a stillness can be,
how far he was moved
when he was motionless,
how even now as I sit here
still as his tombstone,
I am spellbound
by the still changing story
of his life—
how because I am still
all of me is moved,
until I’m a new woman
sitting in the same place.
When She Is Being Herself
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Kayleen Asbo, story, transformation on July 28, 2023| 4 Comments »
I listen as she spins
gold out of words,
infusing the room
with grail and goddess,
with Celtic greens
and Grecian blues,
until the whole room
is glowing and golden, lit
by her love for the world.
Stories are, perhaps,
one of the simplest
proofs that miracles exist.
Look how before
there was only a room.
Now everything
and everyone in it
is shining, changed,
drenched in grace.
The Invitation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, invitation, love, reframe, story on December 31, 2021| 15 Comments »
Two nights after he died,
all night I heard the same
one-line story on repeat:
I am the woman whose son
took his life. The words
felt full of self-pity,
filled me with hopelessness, doom.
And then a voice came,
a woman’s voice, just before dawn,
and it gave me a new shade of truth:
I am the woman who learns
how to love him now that he’s gone.
It did not change the facts,
but it changed everything
about how I met the facts.
Over a hundred days later,
I am still learning what it means
to love him—how love is
an ocean, a wildfire, a crumb;
how commitment to love changes me,
changes everyone,
invites us to bring our best.
Love is wine, is trampoline,
is an infinite song with a chorus
in which I am sung.
I am the woman who learns
how to love him now that he’s gone.
May I always be learning how to love—
like a cave. Like a rough-legged hawk.
Like a sun.
Still Learning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, butterfly, learning, story on December 9, 2021| 9 Comments »
Tonight when I see a photo
of myself from almost thirty years ago,
I stare at the woman in white lace
the way a butterfly might stare
at that strange nibbling larva—
curious. It doesn’t occur to me
to tell her about what will happen.
I flit by as she stays on the wall.
She’ll learn soon enough. I breathe
into my wings. She’ll learn.
Note to My Future Self
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged future, patience, self talk, story on May 23, 2021| 2 Comments »
Please don’t tell me what will happen.
I’ve peeked before at the end of a book
and know how one detail learned too soon
can ruin the entire story.
Not that I wish to be patient.
Of course, I want to know what’s coming,
but this story only works in present tense.
Even when it makes me weep,
even when I’d rather put this story down,
even when I’d like to rewrite the last scene,
please, don’t give me even a little hint.
I am not sure I believe in happy endings,
but I believe in turning the page,
in holding the weight of the book in my hands,
and racing through the text,
my eyes eager to discover what comes next.
Lights Out
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, father, story on June 20, 2020| 5 Comments »
We would be tucked into our twin beds,
and dad would sit in the door way.
Every night, he’d tell us a story about a boy
and a girl who were very much
like my brother and me, only they lived
amongst the dinosaurs. I don’t remember
how the stories went, but I remember
how I loved them, how my father’s voice
became part of the night, how everything
always turned out right for the kids
in the story. How much I wanted
to be that girl who rode on a pterodactyl,
and how grateful I felt to be the girl I was,
snug under the thin blue blanket,
our small room a cave where anything
could happen, the low tones of my father
quietly cradling me toward sleep.