The other day on a FaceTime call with a writer friend, we were talking about social media. A few months ago, she emailed to check in on me and we began to kindle a writerly friendship that’s evolved into a once-a-week video chat. We talk about our lives, our goals, and what we being a writer means to us both. When the subject of social media comes up—which it usually does at some point during our calls—I have a lot to say. I haven’t been on Instagram in eleven months and the previous year had …
blog
Somewhere Someone is Holding Hope
“Deep down, people seem glad to know that monks are praying, that poets are writing poems. This is what others want and expect of us, because if we do our jobs right, we will express things others may feel, or know, but can’t or won’t say.” —Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk Somewhere out there, someone is praying. Someone is praying for you because you are part of the world. Someone is thinking of you because you belong to the human race, soul and body and spirit. Someone out …
Quarantine by Numbers
33 – The number of days we’ve been in isolation, at home, no longer interacting with the real world. The last day before the world shut down and we were told to stay home, the kids didn’t have school. It was a three-day weekend and that Friday we met my mom at the movies to see Onward. The movie theater wasn’t busy, but we ran into our neighbors at the one o’clock showing. I resisted the urge not to say how crazy this is, to say more than “It’s so good to see you.” Already, the grocery stores …
Everything is Normal, Nothing is Normal
My dreams lately have been filled with missing things, about things that are just out of reach. I can’t find my car. I can’t find a store at the mall. I misplaced my dinner. I’m waiting in the salon chair and no one will cut my hair. I wake feeling haunted, wipe the sleep from my eyes, and try not to think too deeply about what I just dreamt. I don’t have to think deeply. I know what it means. Everything is normal. Nothing is normal. Each morning, I still find my way to the couch, …
What We Have is Today
Now that it’s spring, when I sit in the morning dark, I can often hear birds singing. I think of them waking with song, their voices rising in the darkness, their faith that the light will shine again. For them, it’s instinct, the time of year when everything comes alive again, including them. They have so much to look forward to: nest building and baby making, tending their own square inches of home. They don’t ask questions or wonder if maybe they should be doing something else. They are just …