I gather flotsam into a pile, and hurry to drop them in my bedroom. Back to the kitchen, a stray glass waits for the dishwasher and the floor begs another sweep. The clock taps its fingers, ticking down the minutes until company arrives. The doorbell rings. “Come in, come in. So good to see you. …
One of the videos I show to moms preparing for their babies is “Eye Contact Means Love.” Though an infant cannot understand or form speech, eyes speak a language without words. Mom walks into the room, baby swivels her head and focuses on her mother’s face and specifically seeks her eyes. Connecting through eye-contact bonds …
Do you have a nickname? Some nicknames follow given names, like Suzy from Suzanne, but I’m talking about pet names given by people who love us. My mother bestowed two nicknames on me. One is too embarrassing to share, the other doesn’t make me blush, but I keep it close also. This second nickname made …
You’ll never believe what lay on my doorstep this morning. I might have stepped on her if not for the contrasting yellows and greens that she wore. It was Tina Turtle. Tina Turtle visits once or twice a year. She bushwhacks through the grass and bushes with lumbering steps. Last year she stretched her neck …
Trees, barren of leaves and color, appear dead in winter. Winter that period of waiting, waiting, waiting, with our feet on the edge of despair, willing for life to return when there’s no sign of it. Does life still run underground, bubbling in secret? Weeds have crept over the garden so slowly that I hadn’t …
“It was great running into you. Let’s do lunch.” “I’d love to—stay in touch.” Friends hug and wave goodbye as they step in different directions with their minds already on the next destination. As days pass, then months, their sincere talk of lunch is locked in the past. To remedy this “out-of-sight/out-of-mind” situation, the zeitgeist …
Dad picked up the salt shaker and tipped it over his tea. “Uh Dad, that’s not your steak. That’s your tea.” He continued with the salt, and few crystals began spilling into his glass. I put my hand over his and guided the salt shaker over his plate. His eyes slowly tracked our hands, but …
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, …
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 …
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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 …
This past fall we drove fifteen minutes to the beach for our son to soak in salt water before he had to return to landlocked Tennessee later that evening. The skies had withheld rain for the past month, so the Gulf of Mexico waters were like liquid glass. We noticed a stirring in the water …