It’s going to take some time. I hope it doesn’t take forever. I must have been in second or third grade, and she was a year or two...

She didn’t say a word, and neither did I. It may have seemed like just a piece of paper, but to me it represented much more. For nearly...

Her baby wore a cotton sun hat, and I saw her at the old park that nearly met the expressway. We were neighbors, people that fell into...

“You could come to California.” For a second, my feet sunk into the hot sand on Venice Beach and the rhythm of the waves threatened to...

It was time to take the tree down. More needles had fallen to the ground than remained on the branches. The fires were burning, and the...

One day, she was just gone. Eva was the most striking of all the laying hens, with her nearly iridescent feathers, graceful presence, and...

I understand why they gave me  one of those spoon/fork combos, but it was nearly impossible to cut the “grilled chicken” that occupied...

It always seemed like such a project to put the hose away after I had finished watering in the yard. This was a task that offered no...

It’s no secret: I didn’t want him in the first place. Maybe that’s not really fair to say; the truth is that I wasn’t confident that I...

Bright butter and lavender together blended to nearly a muddy brown, nondescript, until I slowed a bit and let my eyes see what was...

The lingering smell of a new coat of blacktop added an offputting layer to the earthy freshness of the morning prairie path before me....

Though not exactly a historical scholar, I have always been drawn to things of the past. Four or five thrift and vintage stores are now...

How could a mother do that to her child? Why would a mother do that to her baby? How could it possibly be okay? We delighted in...

But there really aren’t any directions, at least not any reliable ones.  I thought things were better, but then it comes screaming back....

The chickens cross the road for lots of reasons. It was unusually warm for late May. As I stole time in the garden on a Sunday morning,...

“It keeps changing fast, and it don’t last for long.” My mom loved the water. We traveled the country for many summers in our...

Right now, nothing else matters to her. She has put her whole self, every ounce of her energy and every hour of her days and nights into...

Darkness had already fallen when I finally made my way out to close the chicken door on this cold March night. I was almost startled by...

Something happened. Something went wrong, or maybe it didn’t. Words that interrupted my idle thoughts as I stood at the kitchen sink, ...

Here is what I hope you will know: it is different. Raising babies that I have birthed is not the same as raising children not born to...