On Dangerous Hospitality One of the first chapter books I owned was a little paperback my dad bought for me, called The Watchmaker’s Daughter. It must have been a child’s adaptation of Corrie ten Boom’s story in The Hiding Place, which I wouldn’t read until I was old enough to brave it. I loved Corrie. … Continue reading Hiding Place
For Joel & NatalieA Blessing for Their House May you live like you’re young in this house that’s older than you,old as the trees,old like the bell steeple on Main Street,and the railroad that runs with the river west to the town where Dad was born. May you not erase the aging lines of this place, which … Continue reading Remember
In the days that trudged between long marches and grueling battles, it’s said that George Washington would write home to Mount Vernon about the way he wished things to look there. I think he found a reprieve from the war in thinking about his home and directing how his servants should situate things, like the … Continue reading A Good Man
May came—the green, bright end to the school year—and we’d shut our math books before noon, eat on the porch, then run to the swings or grab bats from the garage. The apple tree would blossom, the mowers would hum, and it would have been a shame to sit at our desks and miss it. … Continue reading By Wisdom is a Schoolhouse Built
A True Story from Home April is young, and I’m in my garden as often as I can be. Today, I have company. My nephew, Bennett, is kneeling in the zucchini patch beside a Red Ryder wheelbarrow. He asked if he could help, so he’s weeding the clover that crept up in early March, tossing … Continue reading A Garden in Babylon
A True Story from Home Last February was gray and long, as the lean months before spring tend to be when winter feels old. But in my mailbox on Edgewood Road, there was something new: letters from Jared about what he hoped to plant in his garden that spring. He wrote of marigolds and tomatoes. … Continue reading When You Come Marchin’ Home
"Time to get up." His voice cut into my sleep like soft butter, a corner of my mattress dipping beneath him, a hand on my ankle, frost in the corners of the window, crumbs in the corners of my eyes, a pink sun kissing the bare treeline, he in a white dress shirt saying, "Little … Continue reading Talitha Cumi
A True Story from Home There it was, lying in a black case on the quilt like a closed casket. “Well, open it,” she said quietly. I unhitched the clasps and cracked it open to see a dark violin lying in green velvet. It was coated in dust and rosin, its strings were frayed, and … Continue reading The Butcher’s Violin
I don't know if my great-great Grandma Howard was a round woman, or if she was as twiglike as my great-grandma Wanda, or if she had my grandma Karen’s smile, or my dad’s love of German chocolate cake. I only know what Dad remembers, and that is her cinnamon rolls. They were doughy to their … Continue reading It’s Recipes We Remember
In response to my Papa Larry's poem: "Just One More Time" Remember what Eliot wrote, that “What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present” And so your “have-beens” of driftwood fires near the sea Are, dear Papa, my present. Might I remind you-- Time is like the … Continue reading Always Present
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