Saying YES to Open Doors
The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. – John Burroughs Yesterday, Philip called and said, “They want to come on Thursday.” They were not...
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Of a Childlike Faith
When I was a kid, I used to go to school and then ride home on the bus fully confident that my home, my parents, and even a couple of cookies would be there. I had absolute faith that all was well,...
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Let Life Come
When I was younger, I used to think – when I get older, I’ll _______. Lately, I’ve been realizing, well, here I am older. Most of the time I forget that. Most of the time I think I’m still waiting for...
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The Gaze: Why Controlled Emotion Creates Good Writing
I was about a quarter-mile up the driveway when it hit me: I am really mad. I can’t believe he said that. I can’t believe HE said THAT. What was he thinking? Why in the world would someone think it...
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Making My Golden Calf
I would have had a really bad attitude if I was an Isrealite. I would have been one of the first people smacking on the flap of Moses’s tent demanding answers about water and food and when we were...
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Space Cows and Overthinking Writing
If you’ve ever seen me draw a dog, you know – I have no visual artistic ability. My dogs look like cows from space.* But when I was a kid, I could draw even the most elaborate sketches. Once, I drew a...
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Wild, Quiet Lessons In Non-Attachment
Let go completely. Let yourself totally be a writer from now on. – Natalie Goldberg It clenches tight around my clavicles, this refusal to let go, this grasping, this belief that if I say it, do it,...
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To Lose Myself in the Dancing
. . . at some point in our lives we have to be crazy, we have to lose control, step out of our ordinary way of seeing, and learn that the world is not the way we thin it is, that it isn’t solid,...
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Lessons from a Makeshift Balance Beam
From the sandbox/softball lot to the sideporch that was our family’s front door, Dad had scooped out clay and laid gray gravel, gravel that I tried not to touch on the traverse from space to space....
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I Cannot Control Anything But My Words
My short, wide-knuckled fingers type hard, pounding out ideas and feelings and the scrap of red that showed through her coat on the day she walked out of our classroom for the last time. Then, those...
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