My husband hit a home run with dinner plans when he asked if he could pick up a specific meal from a specific restaurant for us one evening. In our thirty-one years of marriage, we’ve had plenty of exchanges involving what we’d have for dinner that sound like echoes. What do you want? I don’t …
Missed My Window
I’ve only experienced Black Friday in the early hours just after midnight once. Though it’s largely online now and spans several weeks leading up to and beyond the Friday after Thanksgiving, I remember a time when I avoided it at all costs. Then my daughter, in her early teens, began hearing from her friends about …
Living Under A Shadow
Thomas is one and a fledgling walker. His mom insists that he hold her hand for safety in parking lots and on sidewalks, but he is free to roam inside his playroom or fenced yard. Sometimes he still chooses to hold her hand if the ground is particularly uneven or he’s in unfamiliar territory. I …
Seeing With Fresh Eyes
My niece, Anna, ran for her phone to take a picture of the red skyline above the lake in my backyard tonight. She snagged her sister by the arm on her way out the door. Hearing them exclaim over the beauty of the sunset reminded me of how many times I’ve been stopped in my …
Where is your Damascus?
The spring of my daughter’s wedding, she asked if we could ride the Virginia Creeper Trail together. We traveled to Damascus, the midpoint of the thirty-five mile trail, rented bikes and chartered a lift to the trailhead seventeen miles up in Whitetop. That first year was perfectly magical! We shared a quaint little room in …
Focus Forward
As I drove home from visiting my daughter in the mountains earlier this evening, I watched the sun setting. My southeastern route meandered through the foothills and the pinks and oranges of dusk stayed to my right until one winding section placed the western sky right in front of me. This is the view I …
Eavesdropping
I thought I heard my granddaughter stirring in her crib as I brushed my teeth in the guest bath across from her room. I stood outside her door, holding my breath to listen, as I’ve done hundreds of times before with my own children. I waited for the sound of her rhythmic breathing before heading …
I Got Nothing
I’m a fixer. I’m not at the same level as my mother who has more trouble sitting still than I do. I’m not lazy; just a hair more laid back like my dad. Still it’s hard for me to admit I don’t have the answer. Not every situation has an accounting solution where the spreadsheet …
Magnify
My youngest strode across the blacktop, chest puffed out, looking like he was about to pop. Before he was even in the car, in a rush of words he explained how he was the only one who already knew how to use the microscopes and how the professor had asked him to help everyone else …
Are Your Ears Itching?
When I was younger, I remember my grandparents asking someone if their ears were burning, meaning that someone, possibly even they, had been talking about them behind their backs. Maybe my papa’s mother had heard someone gossiping about someone else at the mill or maybe a little bird told my grandmother. These commonly used idioms …
A Fitting Reply 