Last week my two youngest kids brought home Mother’s Day gifts they made at school (bless you, teachers, for your Mother’s Day gifts via your students). Will painted a handy little pot that I think will hold pens and pencils, and Ellie made a beautifully crafted flower from brightly colored tissue paper. He and Ellie also brought home a fill-in-the-blank note about their mom (I especially love these). Continue reading “Mother’s Day Three Days Later”
The Ant List
Our school calendar has summer break lasting 80 days this year. In Tallahassee, those 80 days average about 14 hours of sunlight apiece. So I made an ant list. You see May is already half over, and I’m terrified. In two weeks the schedule gets pulled; my 9-2 workday gets the squeeze. And somehow I will need to work with four kids wandering aimlessly about the house, four kids whose natural bent will be to use electronics like a lollipop, balk at being turned outside in the hot and humid Tallahassee air, and to exploit the words “I’m bored.” Continue reading “The Ant List”
Night Slips Gently
The day’s events parade across the streets of my mind as sun slips behind trees; the day is coming to an end. On a ticket in the kitchen of the restaurant where I sit is my order for glazed salmon. I am wrapping up a day that has been spent mostly alone, away from home. I’m midway through my return home now, watching out the restaurant window as the curtain falls on a day I have fully savored. Continue reading “Night Slips Gently”
Real Hope
Two fighters dance in a boxing ring, their bright red gloves jabbing in rhythm with their feet.
It’s how I see Hope and Realism.
I don’t know if it’s right for me to put these two in a ring together, to make them duke it out. Maybe Hope and Realism are not competitors. Maybe they’re friends. Continue reading “Real Hope”
Roatan Journal: Day 4
Day 4. The pump house team has finished the excavation of trench around the concrete pad where the well is dug. Arms are sore from breaking up rock with a pickaxe. Our team mixes and pours concrete now, leveling the wet mud so block can be laid. Enrique found us two locals this morning, and we’ve paid them to help with the work. They’ve taken over the role of boss now, pointing and directing in Spanish. They know what they’re doing and work deftly, unfazed by the lack of equipment and tools we take for granted. Continue reading “Roatan Journal: Day 4”
Roatan Journal: Day 3
Day 3. Enrique arrives after breakfast, and we climb in the back of his truck with our gear. We fill water jugs at Henry’s house and begin the ascent to the Colonia. The roads are badly eroded from rains. Some aren’t navigable. Enrique’s Toyota creaks and rocks as we climb. We’re at such a steep angle we can see the hood of the truck but not the road. The foot traffic is dense. The cars are just as talkative as at the airport, beeping their island chatter as they whir past. Continue reading “Roatan Journal: Day 3”
Roatan Journal: Day 2
Day 2. We wake with the sun at six o’clock, veiled as it is by a mantle of stratonimbus. It’s quiet except for the intermittent comings and goings of a pickup truck with an engine that sounds like coffee percolating. The day is fresh, the water luring. On the dock, looking into glassy water, I can see all the way to the bottom. I feel as though I’m peering into an aquarium. Small fish dart in and out of the swaying grass. Continue reading “Roatan Journal: Day 2”
Roatan Journal: Day 1
Last July, I traveled to Roatan, Honduras with my husband Mike, oldest daughter Bailey and a team of family and friends. The following are journal entries from a week there.
Day 1. We arrive to a congested Customs line at an island airport, here on Roatan, off the coast of Honduras. A uniformed man with a gun holstered on his belt, stamps our passports. We follow the dense crowd to baggage carousels. Bags slowly circle on the worn, black belt. Passengers dart back and forth, picking up bags like birds snatching seeds from a feeder. We gather our bags and head out the double doors towards the sun. Henry and Frances from Living Water for Roatan meet us outside, in a hot breeze thick with salt and the smell of diesel. Old Toyotas sputter down the road, talking like women, an island Morse code of short and long beeps. Continue reading “Roatan Journal: Day 1”
Hide-n-Seek
To fill a page with words, useful words, is to find reverb deep down in the soul. It’s to strum that one singular note that makes creation sing along. And to face the terrifying darkness and write upon it the Light is to participate in the most sacred of work. It is a work I’d like to do. Continue reading “Hide-n-Seek”
Lessons on an Airplane
I spent much of last weekend in airport terminals and on planes, traveling to and from Los Angeles. One of my travel buddies talked to the gate agent about changing our seats. The transaction went well, and my friend thanked her for being so helpful. “We try,” the gate agent answered. “We really do always try to make our customers happy. And when they’re cooperative and friendly about it, it makes a difference.” Continue reading “Lessons on an Airplane”