We greeted Christmas by trudging through the icy medical clinic parking lot under a black sky, the gloved hands of two feverish kids holding our own. Dual breathing treatments, Nebulizers, three coloring pages and a mystery Dum-Dum (outcome: root beer). It was anything but magical, but there was a moment spent pacing the carpet tiles
Hey you. I know you’re out there, bustling with everyday stuff on top of non-everyday stuff. Maybe you’ve just shut down your computer and you’re heading out the lobby for the last time in ’17. Maybe you’re headed out the door to drop the kids off at school or daycare, or maybe not at all
It occurs to me that there are many voices whispering into the ears of new(ish) parents, particularly around Christmastime. For one, there is the reality that we are not getting any younger, that these babies are precious and this time is weighty. Make the memory! Seize the day! We have only seventeen Decembers left before
I haven’t given much thought to birds in the past. Once, when visiting India, I remember noticing that when a flock of pigeons would fly all around you it was like breath, like molecule, their noisy wings thrumming to the beat of your own heart. You were altogether surrounded. As if you were the same.
Listen. I don’t claim to know a thing or two about cooking or baking or sauteeing, about chiffonade techniques or a parboil. If you point me in the direction of a culinary kitchen, I will be unable to name approximately 84% of the available trappings. Basting and barding and blanching? Foreign languages. But food placing?
Holiday excitement hit early in these parts. We started our annual Christmas puzzle in October (I know, I know) and have gone through no less than three sacks of flour since. The garden rosemary is dwindling; the cinnamon restocked twice. For two weeks now, I’ve passed the hallway and smiled at the quiet glow of
“Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life. All it needs from you is that you take care not to trample on it.” -Marilynne Robinson
I don’t know what came over me exactly. I just know that, somewhere in the nostalgic depths of my mind, there is an image of an aproned mother in pearls and lipstick pulling a loaf of homemade, freshly-risen, flour-dusted bread straight out of the kitchen oven. My mother didn’t bake bread. I don’t even think
