A few days ago, I dug my sourdough starter out from the back of the basement fridge, lifted off the tea towel, and found it was black and hard as stone. I said, Of course. This would be the year my starter died. My biologist friend had told me just last week that it’s quite … Continue reading The Year My Sourdough Starter (Nearly) Died
The Story Behind True Stories from Home For every writer, there’s a day of small beginnings. Jane Austen started with a quill and inkwell in her family’s sitting room. Hemingway carried a notebook and pencil around in his pocket. For Tolkien, it was the back of a student’s Oxford exam paper where he drafted the … Continue reading Over the Pond Banks & Through the Woods
This may sound strange, but these days, I pray often for honeybees. Jared is a beekeeper and a businessman, so much of his success lies in the hives tucked in the corner of his property—in their brood, their comb, and the flow of their nectar in spring. When I said “yes” to dating him, I … Continue reading Bless These Hives
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
My pastor said last Sunday that it's no mistake where we meet Jesus. I met him at the kitchen table, when I was still small enough to fit on my dad's lap. He had unlatched and pulled the two halves of the table apart, so there was a gap where the leaves might go. On … Continue reading At the Kitchen Table
A True Story from Home To me, Mrs. Olave Thurston was the lady in my grandpa’s stories---as if she was another Ma Ingalls or Miss Rumphius. When we ate chicken for dinner, Papa would tell how Mrs. Thurston raised, butchered, and boiled her own. When spring came and I cut fresh flowers for the table, … Continue reading Gravestone Flowers
I saw you all honey-haired in the golden light of the cattle stall, like motes of lit dust in the world--- little, but alive with the breath of God Himself and watching the cow heave and steam and give her milk between your fingers, as your own mama had given hers to you, and as … Continue reading Dust Motes
On Waiting, Hunting, & Courtship “Come back and see us,” she said. “We’ll be here.” And as we turned in our coats to go, she caught me once more: “And enjoy yourselves. Have fun.” This was just after she’d said she was bored of bingo, and couldn’t they offer more activities for the long, dark … Continue reading Late In Time
Autumn came, at first, like a man too fierce to get old, huffing and fuming like his leaf blower, hurrying hot wind, unsettled as a hurricane in the trees until, one afternoon, the last leaf fell, was raked, put away, and he settled into something long, cold, and sweeter.
For Mr. Bob They said you could have flown that day and gone down with the plane that burned in the field behind the barn, smoking black above the Pennsylvania pines. Instead, you went down slow, stalling, but steady, and still checking your flight lists, making sure the hospice nurses were safe and buckled, the … Continue reading Flight 93
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