I gazed over my steering wheel through swirling snow at an empty road. What a lonely stretch for my car to conk out on. A bridge bisected the highway between my growling stomach and an inn a mile ahead where a hot meal and roaring fire awaited. Last year, another traveller in a similar situation …
Last Man Off is the true tale of a fishing vessel sunk in the Southern Ocean near the Antarctic. Thirty-eight crew members hauled in thousands of lines of dangling tooth fish, while the winter wind built to hurricane force, and the waves towered over the boat. Icy water flooded the deck below the main deck. …
We walked through a historic neighborhood in an unfamiliar city. It was time to return to the hotel, and I knew we should turn right, but my husband headed left. I didn’t say anything, and we arrived back at the hotel without a hitch. We’d still be walking, if we’d gone my way. My husband …
A disturbing question confronted me two weeks ago, like an Intervention. It bubbled under the surface in March and April when the Master Naturalist classes were meeting, but I ignored its warnings. On class days, I woke with anticipation, having packed a lunch the night before and set out clothing. During lectures and field trips, …
Nikita, our dog, lay unbothered near the driveway despite passing dogs barking and straining at their leashes. Neighbors exclaimed their amazement at her loyalty. Even on our walks to the park three blocks down the street, she trotted beside us. Every few yards she looked up and synced with our pace. Thunder and fireworks were …
Acting Squirrelly Our breakfast table rests against a wall of windows that look out on the back porch. Each morning a menagerie of birds and squirrels entertain us at the bird feeder hanging off the end of the porch. One morning a young squirrel climbs onto the glider in the breezeway and sits on his …
Cardinalis cardinalis. Like an enlightened Hellen Keller, I gorge on names in a Master Naturalist class, running from tree to tree. What’s the name of this tree, that bloom? What kind of frog made that call? Is this a sparkle berry or wild blueberry? I learn an organism’s ecological niche, its diet, predators, behaviors, …
Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow A baseball cap wedged between the bed and wall, the piano bench pulled out, an empty refrigerator, and piles of sheets and towels, that’s what’s left after a weekend of storytelling, feasting, beaching, and celebrating. Now what? When our young children ran around the yard playing the imagination game, grandparents …
When Your Home is No Longer Your Children’s Home Read More »
The Day After Whew! Lent is over. I almost said, Easter is over, since it was yesterday, but Easter is my every day now. The time of constant self-examination and mourning sin is past. I am a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.The old has passed away; …
Both Hands As I sat down at the kitchen table with a sandwich, the ticking clock sounded loud in the otherwise quiet house. I reached for my laptop but realized what I was doing and pushed the computer away. Hhmmm. What if I invited Jesus to have lunch with me? It was a novel idea, …
My ears blared sirens in my head, not of sound but of hot-pokered pain. I sat on the crinkly paper in an exam room. “Your ears are fine.” “What? Then why do they hurt so much?” “Your throat is inflamed, and the pain in your ears is referred pain.” “That means my throat is sick …
The air conditioner kicked on as I wound the vacuum cord back into place, but the house was otherwise ominously quiet. Curious, I poked my head around the door frame into one of the boy’s rooms. No one there. I checked across the hall in the other bedroom. No five year old in there either. …