when a kestrel invades my view
I’m standing on tiptoe at the kitchen counter. Steamy tendrils rise from my blue mug, the one with the yellow interior and yellow chicken on the side. I cup my hands around the warmth, sip hot Nantucket Blend. I’m listening to the news about a collapsed bridge in Washington state, and I sigh and lift a prayer. The sun splashes lemon across green, washes the peafowl house/chicken house/storage shed, spills over yard and field, shines at the door of the bluebird house. I wonder if the babies’ eyes have slitted enough to see the light. Yesterday I filled the feeder with dried and live mealworms and watched Mama and Papa busy themselves for the longest time flying back and forth. I’m worried. I put out food a couple times a day, and...
sing a new song
Snow fell on Sunday. In May. On Mother’s Day. It frosted the tulips white. “My mother would not be happy today,” my sister posted on Facebook. “She wouldn’t even be amused.” And I doubt if even we could have made her crack a smile by bursting into song and dance, perhaps with a spring rendition of Winter Wonderland. She’d have squinted her eyes, squeezed her eyebrows, pressed her lips, shook her head. But inside, I think she would have smiled. Maybe. Just a little. Anyway, the Sandy and Candy Show is on hiatus. It hasn’t performed since our manager took her final journey before the snow fell. And some of the music left with her. Remember how we’d go on sometimes, Mom? Like those nights when we wheeled...
comfort in the uncomfortable
Comfort, the word, always takes me back to that uncomfortable place. A hospital bed surrounded by a forest of faces and the smell of alcohol and acetone. They’re removing the polish from toenails and fingernails, making yet another stab in my forearm, trying to pour life back into my body. While life pours into my belly. And I’m so scared. My husband reaches through the scrub green limbs to hold my hand. My pastor comes and prays over me right before they whisk me away. And two days later I sit in the recliner, and I know the battle’s over, and there will be no baby. Ever. I’m alone in this semi-private room, Bible open on lap, reading in 2 Corinthians. “Comfort others like I comfort you.” That’s my Pauline...
five minute friday: brave
Brave is not just bold and blue nails with flowers on the thumbs. Or climbing a cargo net when you’re old enough for a social security net. It’s not just leaping tethered off a platform. Brave slips through circumstances as slick as melted butter. It treads the waters of trials and doesn’t drown. It forgets the past, presses in and presses on. It banishes the bitter and sinks into the present to suck the sweet of every moment. It embraces life single or married or widowed. Childfree or childless. As a parent or grandparent. Brave is a mother bear doing battle for her babies. It’s an empty womb that doesn’t become a tomb. It’s a neverending mountain of laundry and dishes and dusting–done. Brave leans on others when afraid,...
Some Six-Word Memoirs
Lisa-Jo’s prompt for the day is “here.” I read it early this morning and had “here I am” running through my head until I sat down here. Then Laura reminded me I hadn’t written my six-word memoir yet. So here are five minutes (plus a minute) worth of six-word memoirs. 1. Here I am. Here I go. 2. Water. Woods. Words. What. When. Why. 3. I messed up. I got up. 4. Letting the liver tell the story. (Stole that from Buried Stories) 5. Books. Books. Books. Never enough books. 6. Here is now. Hereafter is now. 7. No worries. I’ll handle it all. 8. In the still places. I am. 9. Being trumps doing. At all times. 10. Here I am Lord. Send me. 11. Here I am Lord. Send her. 12. I have a terrible work...
after may never come
She wrapped a towel around my neck and velcro’d the black cape around my shoulders. “Do you know what you want today?” I shrug. “Nope.” I never do. I just want her to fix me. And zap the gray. “Good. Because I’ve got something new. I’ve been dying to try this color on you.” She heads to the back to mix her potion and returns with a dish of white goop. “White?” I never can figure out how what’s in the bowl changes on my head. “Not just white. Pearl,” she giggles as she pulls on her gloves and starts to smear section by section. “You’re gonna love the softness and the shine.” She’s “fixed” me for more than a dozen years. Since after my last...
five minute friday: shattered
She threw the plate down on the carpet. Or maybe she dropped it. Either way, it shattered everywhere, even into the next two rooms. We stood in a sea of shards. With bare feet. She tried to run away, but I scooped her up in my arms. And then I woke up. This is Good Friday. And I’m thinking how God stripped Himself bare and threw Himself down into the midst of our brokenness. Because He longed to gather this fractured world to His breast. And He wept for the love of it. For the love of us. But we shattered Him. Stabbed His head with thorns. Shred his flesh with shards. He stumbled under the weight of the cross, body broken into bread without a bone broken, blood letting life. He hangs under our debt, scoops up all our pieces, stretches out to pull us...
Meet Sandy
Spend–and Give!
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April 19-21, 2013 (past but not forgotten)
American Christian
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