Three weeks ago, I became a grandmother. It’s an indescribable experience watching your baby have a baby and coming to the realization that your life has just expanded by a generation—that a part of you will live on to see the 2100s. What kind of world will my granddaughter inherit? How will she make sense… Continue reading Day Zero

My friend has a bumper sticker that reads WWJBD. (What would Jimmy Buffett do?) Although funny at first glance, that question might just be a roadmap for how we navigate the stressors and sorrows of life. Does happiness boil down to changes in attitudes, changes in latitudes? Jimmy Buffett’s death this week felt like a… Continue reading Come Monday

For quite a while, I’ve been openly hostile and judgmental toward my husband, because each night one of his limbs falls off his side of the bed, jostling me awake. Why is he so careless as to let his limbs dangle? I nudge him constantly, asking him to move toward the center of the bed.… Continue reading Zero Gravity

In our recent trip to Spain, my husband and I had a dual purpose. Exploration of Madrid and Southern Spain was an obvious one. But our second intent was deeply personal: to trace my mother-in-law’s life as a young woman growing up in Madrid. My husband wanted to show me the Spain he knew; we… Continue reading A Cup of Chicken Tea

Like everyone else, last week I was riveted to the news reports of the Titan submersible. We came to learn that, most likely, the five travelers mercifully died instantly upon implosion. But until we knew that—while the clock ticked down the hours, I found myself hungrily gulping air, thinking of the indescribable fear that must… Continue reading Running Out of Air

Last weekend our youngest daughter walked across the college graduation stage, and my husband and I stepped into the light at the end of a long tunnel. For over a quarter of a century, we have paid tuition, packed lunches, signed permission slips, coordinated moves, hosted sleepovers, matched socks, and navigated relationship dramas for our… Continue reading Lights and Tunnels

Last week was my annual gardening weekend—those few days each year that I spend strolling the outside aisles at Lowe’s and Home Depot, breathing in the earthy scents and plotting my summer blooms. And then I'm down on my knees and my bottom, scooching from one hole to the next, digging, fertilizing, planting, watering. I… Continue reading Joyful Dirt

Red and black bows in honor of the Covenant School accompany the regal purple cloths of Easter at churches around Nashville. Every year I eagerly await the advent of Spring: the budding trees, the ground’s greening, the earthy smell of tilled soil. Our world becomes lush, almost overnight, and the ubiquitous spring fever is a… Continue reading The Hypocrisy of Hosanna

Whoever said age is just a number has not yet turned 60. In many ways it’s the Mt. Everest of birthdays—the apex at which you can glimpse, behind you, the roads not traveled and, in front of you, the sloping unknown. Grassy meadows on both sides, with some crabgrass thrown in to keep us alert.… Continue reading Big Birthdays

Many people eagerly anticipate the Super Bowl because it’s the culmination of the football year. I look forward to it because it signals the beginning of the end of winter. This time of year, when overcast skies blanket brittle limbs, winter seems eternal—a never-ending cycle of bleakness regardless of what Punxsutawney Phil says. Around this… Continue reading Tiny Ducks and Super Bowls