Silver and Gold
Friends who I can count on to read my work and respond sincerely to it. Friends for drinking coffee, for studying, for drinking a glass of wine while playing board games.
The M Word
After I managed to swim to the bottom of the pool to retrieve a brick, I lay in a puddle of chlorine and teal tile like a trauma victim.
How to Wait for a Train
But letting go of all those demands emptied me out, and the process of refilling with the right things—that’s what’s taking so much time.
Earth Day and Weapons of Slow Violence
After only a few generations of farming, the soil of one of the world’s most fecund agricultural areas—the Midwest—is practically dead.
I Wanted To Be a Doctor
One day, about two-thirds of the way through the school year, I woke up and realized that I had absolutely no idea what was going on in chemistry class.
Upside Down
This is why we remind each other of what we already know—so we can remember what it means: We might grieve now, but death won’t win.
The Games We Play
The human imagination is a wonderful thing. It may have its greatest power in the mind of a child, building games out of nothing, but it never outlives its usefulness.
Good Friday
Anne Lamott quoted Barbara Johnson: “We are Easter people living in a Good Friday world.” Here’s the thing: in our Good Friday world, awful things happen.
Grace Under Pressure
Harvests were tallied. And fruit farmers hauled in a bumper crop of blueberries, apples, and peaches—the pent-up energies of their formerly ravaged orchards.
On The National
Here’s the thing about the critics: They’re right. The National groans. Sometimes Berninger doesn’t quite sing the lyrics. And the lyrics rarely make sense.
