Blog Stories
It Was February 5th
It was February fifth. The glossy wall calendar hanging inside a kitchen cupboard still displayed a snowy photo for January. Olivia flipped the calendar to the correct month and stared at the day for a moment. She’d be late for work if she didn’t get a move on, yet there was something significant about that date. She furrowed her brow. Was it the birthday of someone she used to know?
James. It was his birthday today. Why, after she hadn’t seen or talked to James in four years, did his birthday graze her consciousness each year? She’d never see him again, not after he’d moved across the world for an ESL stint in South Korea, and subsequently cut off contact. What was he doing now? Had he married a Korean and settled in Seoul? Did it matter? No, she was just curious.
Bittersweet
Annette glanced down at her left hand as the airplane engine roared in preparation for takeoff. A curved branch of gold encircled her finger, glinting in the sunlight that poured through the plane window. She’d bought the ring two days after Paul said he was leaving. In defiance and despair, she’d marched into the jewelry store as if on a mission, and charged the pricey band to his account. She placed it where her simple gold wedding band had been. He never said a word.
Now months later, she was free. Her despair had become acceptance and finally, contentment. Not joy, really, but the more she contemplated her change of status over the subsequent months until the final papers were signed, the more she became convinced that her life was about to change for the best.
A Door Beyond
Jessica approached the house as if she were in a dream. Despite the worn, faded version of what it had been twenty years earlier, she recognized it easily. The pert, but tired dormer windows still jutted over the sloping front roof, which hung lengthwise along the front porch. The porch in particular unleashed a tide of memories, even though the swing where she’s spent so many hours with her grandpa was no longer there. Her eyes lifted to find rusty hooks that had once held it up, still wedged into the planks. It was as though these old hooks wanted to tell stories of all the occupants of the wooden-slatted swing.
Leaping to her thoughts was the day when her father told her about his new job. She’d been confused, she recalled, upon hearing the news. Was it good news or bad? She hadn’t been sure, but knew her life was about to change.
Her father’s strong but soothing voice had rung in her ears, “Honey, you’ll be able to make new friends in the new city. You’ll see, it will be a great thing for our family.” He had sounded so sure, but had insisted too strongly.
A Perspective on Disappointment
I lived in France for a long time. Paris was my favorite place to live ever, my second backyard, my second home. I moved back to the U.S. 2 ½ years ago and have slowly been settling into a new business teaching French and writing. I haven’t been back to France for a visit, but wanted to go this year. I wanted to see friends, and had some research I wanted to do for books. I started planning many months ago. Okay, I wasn’t financially solid enough, but thought I might be, by the time the trip...
The End in Mind
I learn a lot of life lessons from my hobby, pottery. Sometimes I go to the studio and just want to express myself in a creative outlet. By thrusting my hands into the clay, I touch a substance that can express me, but isn’t me. Who knows what I’ll end up with?
Actually, it’s better to have a small notion of what I’m aiming for before I begin. Adventure and the unknown are good for certain things, but flying by the seat of your pants doesn’t usually improve your results.
When I sit down at the wheel with a round ball of clay that I’ve carefully patted into shape, I first get out the air bubbles and center the mound. Then I start making something. However, I have to at least know if I’m making something bowl-shaped or cylindrical, since that will determine how I begin. What I end up with will be far different from what I intend, if I don’t decide beforehand.
Thankfulness …
Hoping your turkey-eating, family-seeing, time-enjoying holidays are wonderful! No matter what's happening a daily thankfulness habit is as good for your day as a session at the gym or a handful of vitamins. Or better. But at this time of year, I stop and look back, then look forward, filled with the certainty that all is well, and will be. God is good.
The Greatness of Being a Beginner
At times it’s uncomfortable being a beginner. I look at my Italian book and I don’t know how to say anything useful, other than “the dishes are in the kitchen”. Um…where else would they be?
Same thing happens in the pottery studio. I look at the pieces of art made by professionals who use the same studio, and it makes me feel pretty small. I wonder, just how LONG will it take to make something that doesn’t look like an artifact from Pompeii? (post-volcanic eruption, I mean…)
And I won’t get started about fiction-writing. There, the learning curve is so far out, you can’t see the end.
Quotes for the Dream
Today I got into a closet-cleaning mood. I really have to act on it when it happens, because it won’t happen again until the next comet is scheduled to fly by. As I re-organized, a couple of interesting things surfaced. A couple of necklaces I thought I’d lost, and a folded-up piece of paper. I was intrigued. I opened it and it was a copy of some encouraging quotes from different sources. I wrote them down several years ago for a group I wanted to do when I lived in France, a small group of...
Limping, Strolling, Running
I was thinking today about the different ways people come to God. Some don’t come until very late, others not at all. But those who come do so in different ways.
First, there’s the limp. Life has beaten us up. We’re emptied out and bruised all over. Maybe not even sure God has noticed or cares, but we still go, limping. Our journey may be slower because of it, but that’s okay. We get there. And we get a lot of TLC along the way. Or maybe limping demands more effort than our strength can supply, so we crawl. I’ve felt like that. I’ve also crawled in the other direction at times, too hurt to look at Him.
The Beauty of Decisions
Years ago a woman at church shared something I have always remembered. She commented on how many decisions we make every day, in the thousands, without even thinking. It struck me how much autonomy we have over our lives in the small and large decisions, and even the automatic ones. So many things we think of as reflexes are really small decisions, made in the blink of an eye.
It got me thinking. Thinking about decisions I make daily, without much thought. Or the ones I give a passing thought, little decisions, seemingly inconsequential. Of course, we cannot agonize over every decision, but if we bring to consciousness some of our knee-jerk decisions, won’t we have less conflict, get more done, stay closer to God during the day, trust more instead of worrying? Wouldn’t we live according to our values more often, weigh the value of spending time with this versus that?
Gets kind of overwhelming, doesn’t it?
A New Morning
A fiction excerpt Bold shafts of morning sun nudged open Emily’s eyelids, still sandy and dry from her late night. She shut them quickly with a groan, and rolled face down into the feather pillow. Yet the warmth of the day’s beginning urged her upright and teased her eyes back open. She slid down from the bed and approached the window, drawing in a full breath of balmy breeze. The previous day’s voyage faded to a murky half-memory that seemed unreal. Unreal, that is, except for the bruise on...
Two Worlds
Starbucks in Paris. A tourist’s haven from heat and culture stress, as well as a Saturday meeting place for Parisian students. The typical population—well-to-do teens, traveling families, twenty-somethings in summer fashions— filled the comfortable chairs drinking lattes, espressos, and frappucinos. A woman “of a certain age”, as the French would say, entered an alcove by the window. In one hand, nails encrusted with black, she held a steaming beverage. In the other, she clutched two pastries...