And then there was the day that I didn’t want to write a blog post. I wondered when it would happen. I was feeling pretty impressed by myself for making it through nearly two-thirds of the month without running out of ideas or just simply not wanting to write. But I’ve hit my wall. I don’t feel like it. I’m […]
Julie’s Porch
I sat in Julie’s living room this evening. I walked in, looked at the sofa, and turned to look back at her. “I’ve never sat down in this room before,” I said. She raised one eyebrow and cocked her head a little. “How is that?” I gestured to the darkened screen porch out the back door. “I’ve spent many hours […]
Fireplace
Someone posted a photo of a woodstove happily burning on Facebook this evening. It glimmered in my sight as I scrolled passed. At first, I bemoaned the not-quite-fall that we seem to be having here in Charlotte, but then I paused, noted that I had been chilly for most of the day, and suddenly recalled that I now have a […]
House Concert
I went to a Holloway House Concert tonight. They’re evidently cool enough that the musicians in Nashville who come to play at them talk about them in hushed tones to one another. It’s true. One of them told me. When she agreed to come, her musician friends said to her, “Oh, they’re so great. I love doing Holloway House Concerts.” […]
Time Differences and Squirrel Sacrifice
My sister Jessie just FaceTimed me from Singapore. She’d just gotten off with Mom and Dad, currently in Hawaii. “It’s strange,” she said. “They’re six hours ahead of us, but a day behind.” I recall that strange feeling. For the vast majority of my life I have lived in the Eastern Time Zone. Therefore most of Asia is twelve or […]
The Purse
This afternoon, on the way back from lunch, I tossed my purse on the back seat of the car next to Kim. She glanced down at it and said, “I like your purse! That’s cute!” I laughed, because when I think about that purse—in any sense other than to pick it up and carry it around with me—I immediately think […]
Kamikaze Squirrels and Zinzi’s Cat
I drive through a quiet neighborhood on my way to work. This morning I was forced to drive it like a mad woman, dodging squirrels right and left that jumped out from the side of the road that ran across in front of me. They scooted by as my tires rolled through the leaves scudding across the road. One had […]
Moments
I tried to keep my eyes open for something today, something that would trigger a long-past memory. Instead, at every turn, the memories brought to the fore were all recent, remnants of full days with good friends. So, a few glimpses: *** The voices singing a hymn this morning from the opening of Bible study at church reminded me of […]
A Favorite View
There’s a spot along the North Carolina/Tennessee border where the mountains grow more angular, as if they’ve sucked in their breath. Their spines arch across the sky and all their rib bones show under their skin of trees. I’ve decided it’s my favorite view on the drive to Nashville. Evidently I’ve driven that route enough times to feel like a […]
The Birth of a Song
[Editorial note: I’m kinda breaking my own rules for the #write31days challenge today; this one isn’t an sight or moment that recalls a memory, but just the moment itself—the anecdote was too good to dilute by tying it to another memory. I’ll blame Jonathan Rogers, who asked the other day why I need to connect the moments to memories (I […]