I came down the drive tonight just before the rainstorm, and the lamp was on, and the fan moving thick air through the front room, and you weren't home. You'd taken a train to the sea, then a steamship across, and were walking Berlin in 1943, and the bikes were ringing under the bombers (and … Continue reading Girl on the Train
"{In} grace... still my sighs and fill my mouth with song, then give me summer weather as a Christian." ~ The Valley of Vision, "Purification" Lemonade made with strawberries from the patch Drive to town with Trent, listening to Jamie Drake's new album Sweeping to The Sing Team Running a letter to the mailbox in … Continue reading june ttmmh
Sometimes, I'll forget whether it’s Dad’s Sunday to preach or not, but as soon as I feel my way down the hallway toward the coffee pot, I know. If he isn’t reading in the armchair by the window, then his black dress shoes wait on the floor next to it. I like to see him … Continue reading The Minister, As I Know Him
The first few things I remember about our stretch of Chatham seashore last summer are the waters chopping and clapping against the rocks, the place where the gray sky touched the horizon, and the points of light that blinked there after dark--- lighthouses across the bay. I also remember how the seashore smelled like dead … Continue reading Death on the Shoreline
Probably the most impassioned thing I ever wrote was an essay called Two-And-A-Half Acres on Edgewood Road. I was eighteen, and for the first time, I’d tried writing about the place I knew best and the people I’d shared it with. I wrote from a hotel room at night, rain blearing the windows and brake … Continue reading The Climbing Tree
"I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to... a land flowing with milk and honey." ~ Exodus 3:17 A Saturday for the kids -- on the floor, in highchairs, playing in the rock bed, eating brownies and reading Beatrix Potter stories on the back patio Playing violin barefoot … Continue reading may ttmmh
This post is from last summer's blog series, The Cape Cod Letters, in which my grandpa Larry and I wrote to each other during my family’s trip East in June 2021. June 10 Papa, My lips and face are chapped, my hair stringy, and my legs sore from bracing myself against the railing of the … Continue reading Winds on the Atlantic
I was thinking last week about that day in 2017 when we all looked up— when folks from Oregon clear down to South Carolina stopped their work to watch the total solar eclipse. It was August and steamy here. Our grandparents came over and sat by fans on the back patio, Dad grilled lunch, and … Continue reading Chasing the Storm
Hey, Mom. Thanks for being here, and for reading these things I write every Sunday. But really, thanks for all the times when you aren't here in front of this screen because you're too busy working in the real spaces around you, planning our meals and wiping down the highchairs after the kids have gone (and also … Continue reading Hey, Mom
It must have seemed like the worst time in the world to get pregnant, Pharoah’s reign. Her son would only be stolen away, screaming and hiccupping as newborns do, tossed over the banks of the Nile. So today, I’m thankful Moses’ mother gave birth anyway. I’m thankful she nursed him to keep him quiet and … Continue reading Daughters of Eve
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