Years ago, I had breakfast with a group of writer friends who gather once a year, women whose names you’d know and faces you’d recognize. The conversation drifted to talking about the challenge of...
I’m sitting at a table with two dear friends, chips and salsa in front of us. We’re talking about one of our least favorite topics—conflict. We confess it makes all three of us uncomfortable. Yet,...
I’m at an event holding a tiny plate covered with crackers and cheese, green grapes, and a few olives, wondering how to eat without looking awkward. Actually, I’m wondering how to even be in this...
Someone I love calls me and as soon as I answer, I can hear the tears in her voice. She’s having a tough time. My first instinct is to try to rescue her. I care about her, after all. Doesn’t that...
Years ago I attended a tea party in the Fellowship Hall of a small town church about an hour from my home. This is where my parents had their wedding reception, grandparents had their fiftieth...
We’re celebrating love in happy ways this month. We’ll give each other heart-shaped balloons, cards with warm words, and boxes of chocolates. But what about the times when someone we love is in a...
The church is in the center of a small town, the kind that’s a combination of boarded up windows and cute boutiques selling soap with ribbons around it or antiques repainted turquoise. The foyer...
The indention in the sand is small, circular, rough-edged, unremarkable. The kind of thing you’d walk by without a glance in a place littered with shells, where dolphins jump the waves, and...
True Confession: I’m a recovering expectations junkie. Give me a standard and I’ll try to meet it. Show me how to earn a gold star and I’ll go for it. This tendency has its perks. It pushes me to...
I’m sitting across the table from someone I love, but in this moment we do not agree with each other. My hands are curled into fists and my heart is pounding so hard I wonder if they can hear it....