When I raised my arm to brush through my hair, I noticed the shiver of unexpected movement in my fingers. I placed the brush on the bathroom counter and held my hands in front of me and watched as they quivered with restlessness. As I watched this unvoluntary shake, I felt the low-grade hum beneath my skin that has kept…
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With guests due to arrive in our home for a visit, I took a moment to sweep up crumbs and wipe paw prints from the floors around our kitchen. As I moved about the room, I found a small mound of wood shavings in a forgotten corner and bent down to sweep them into my hand. A basket of birch…
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One size fits all dress. One size fits all birth plan. One size fits all vacation. One size fits all marriage or church or values or trajectory or pet or parenting style or hair color or friendship. One size fits all life, compartmentalized in a box, tidy, and tied with a ribbon. One size fits all sounds easier somehow. As…
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The horses are disappearing, and I don’t know what to make of it. For six years, I’ve washed dishes to the sight of horses sidling past the wooden fence across the meadow from my kitchen. When I cracked the sliding glass door to catch a spring or autumn breeze, I often heard a soft whinny or snort echo across the…
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Twenty years later, I can still picture my husband Michael as a boy, jumping up in a roomful of cross-legged students and shouting, “Got it!” Moments before his triumphant cry, the teacher had yelled, “Swords in the air!” to which we all heaved our Bibles toward the ceiling, elbows slightly bent under the weight of the Good Book. The room…
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