On Wednesday morning, Mike and I got up and went for a walk. For months and months, I have been asking him to walk with me to an old graveyard that is close to our house, and he finally agreed to go with me. We put on sweatshirts and took our coffee and [...]
Categories: Introspection, Poetry
Since this summer, I have been reading The Divine Hours. No, I don’t do it every day, and, no, I don’t do it at all the prescribed times. But it’s been helpful to have the readings and prayers set out for me. I like saying these things over and over, because the [...]
Categories: Introspection
If you’ve been around here at all to hear me talk about my high school days, you know that the thing that made them bearable was the Quiz Bowl team. Those hours spent in my school library shaped me in so many ways, and I look back on them with pure pleasure. There’s [...]
Categories: Introspection, Library
‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,
’Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
’Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
I have to admit that it made me a little bit uncomfortable on Sunday to be talking [...]
Categories: God, Introspection
When Melissa and I were first becoming friends, one of the things that we ran into was that I have this need for physical space. I am not a very touchy person. I couldn’t tell you why that is, but I have never been one of those girls who plays with other girls’ [...]
Categories: Introspection
This time of year, I find the seduction of cool nights (finally, cool nights) impossible to resist, and you are likely to find me and my iPod outside. I love running on nights like that, though my soundtrack tends to be a little too melancholy to inspire running at a very admirable pace.
Mike listens [...]
Categories: Introspection, Music
Over the weekend, Mike helped me navigate a stressful situation that involved theft, blood, and drama. I had warned him that I would need his assistance, but that turned out to be quite the understatement. He was a calming presence throughout the afternoon, handling some things so I could do others, giving me [...]
Categories: General, Introspection, Marriage
Was this what being a parent was going to be like? A life of anxiety, of fretting about little things? Have a child and give a hostage to fortune; yes, but have any human link, any friendship, and a hostage was given . . . A few minutes earlier she had thought of [...]
Categories: Books, Introspection
The first sunrise I remember seeing was when we lived in Gibsonville, which means I was probably 4 or 5. I remember my mom drinking her coffee, but I don’t remember if anyone else was there or why I was up. The sun was red that morning as it slipped over the horizon. [...]
Categories: Introspection
It’s hard to live a life filled with wonder. I get glimpses of it when we play with kids, when summer nights stretch out hot and humid in front of us, at Christmas, when I eat something that tastes amazing, when something I have been looking forward to finally happens. But most of [...]
Categories: Family, God, Introspection
After months and months of thinking about it, the invitation to my tenth high school reunion came on Friday. Mike taunted me by telling me that interesting things came in the mail that day, and, to his credit, I did have interesting things. But one fewer than he had declared, because the last [...]
Categories: Introspection
A few years ago, I read Ordinary Losses: Naming the Graces that Shape Us by Elisa Stanford. The title of the book, the concept, really grabbed me (as well as the fact that the forward was by Lauren Winner). This is a book about the small losses in our lives, the kind we [...]
Categories: Introspection
On Good Friday, I sat in the pew and I told God that I knew that I was being too controlling, but, please, if we could just get through Easter Sunday, I promised to deal with it then. And it’s true. I have been trying to control things. Everything has seemed so [...]
Categories: God, Introspection, Poetry
For a long time, my friendships were relationships in which the other person pursued me first. If they liked me enough to pursue me, we could be friends. This wasn’t because I saw myself as some great prize, but because I am basically, in many ways, a shy person, and also because I [...]
Categories: Introspection
She emptied her mind of all thoughts and pictures; she held it empty till the sudden change in it gave her the consciousness of the spreading out of the stronger will within; then she allowed that now unimportant daily mind to bear the image and memory of Nancy into its presence. She did not, [...]
Categories: God, Introspection
The latest (Christmas-themed) novel by Elizabeth Berg, The Handmaid and the Carpenter, caught my eye when it came into the library. It’s pretty short, so I read most of it in the doctor’s waiting room yesterday (I didn’t wait very long, don’t worry), and I have to say that I enjoyed it.
In thinking about [...]
Categories: Books, Introspection
“But take heed to yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly . . .” -Luke 21:34, RSV
“But be on your guard. Don’t let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping. Otherwise, [...]
Categories: God, Introspection
I do very much mind if I am getting nowhere, actually. It weighs on my mind and makes me even more tired than a plate full of tryptophans. But, slowly, slowly, I’ve been learning that heading in a straight line to what I perceive to be the answer may not be an answer [...]
Categories: God, Introspection, Music
I hated every day of high school
It’s funny, I guess you did too. -Patty Griffin
When we were at the Patty Griffin concert last year, she played “Tony,” and after the above line, there were so many cheers that I was taken aback (although, looking at the crowd, it’s not such a stretch to think that [...]
Categories: Books, Introspection
There is a bit of Gilmore talk at the bottom of this post, so those of you who want my take should check there.
I am not feeling like myself these days. I’m not saying I’m not keeping my head above water, because I am. I completely am. I’m just . . . [...]
Categories: Books, For Theresa, Introspection