Essays
Lament for a Tree
It was a morning like any other, except for the chainsaws. They started early—before my two-year-old was even up—and continued on well past her afternoon nap. While the coffee brewed, I peeked out the back window and saw them: hard hats in highlighter yellow dotting the tree line, and our tree in particular. Our urban…
READ MORELove That Overcomes Darkness
In the Chinese language, the word for good is made up of two parts: the word for feminine and the word for son or child. I am considered thoroughly lucky and blessed to have borne a daughter, followed five and a half years later by a plucky son. 好 It is good. It was good,…
READ MOREGrace at Night: A Bedtime Diary
Outside the nursery, darkness sets. Behind the red black-out curtains, not a hint of light breaks through. I rock back and forth with my head against the chair, newborn Charlotte’s small body leaning into mine, the only light coming from a small night light across the room. Together we close our eyes to the sound…
READ MOREGod’s Abundance in Anxiety
The mattress sags beside me as my husband sits down, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. My puffy face reveals an evening spent crying, but by now there are no tears left. My hands are balled in my lap, and the evidence of my anxiety is the half-moon indentations from my nails against my palms.…
READ MORELingering on Saturday: As a Hen Gathers Her Brood
I lean back at the bottom of the blue plastic slide, aware of my hair sticking to the static, the sandburs piercing the soles of my shoes, and our English words echoing off the wall that lines the perimeter of the park, our clunky foreignness flittering up to the open windows. The playground in this…
READ MOREJoy Shows Her Finest
Lessons on Goodness from the Basketball Court and Beyond And God saw everything that was created, and, indeed, it was very good. Translation inspired by Genesis 1:31 (The New Interpreters’ Study Bible) I stand at center court in an old, smelly elementary school gym as eight first-grade boys stand along the baseline, squirming with energy,…
READ MOREA Turn of the Kaleidoscope
It was a long-overdue dermatologist appointment. With my pale skin and family history of melanoma, I really need to be checked every year, but it had been more than five since I’d donned an open-backed gown; this was just one of many things that got lost in the shuffle of mothering small children. When I…
READ MOREOur Undoing is Our Becoming
This is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, shed for you. How many times had I heard these words at Mass, even though I had converted only in young adulthood? The passion narrative punched me in the gut every Palm Sunday with the retelling of Jesus’s suffering and death.1 The same crowds…
READ MORELove and Hope in Troubling Times
“Let’s be present in the rain.” It was the end of May: precisely that time of year where I’m reeling from the exhaustion of both teaching and parenting. There is so much that happens in May; it’s the busy culmination of the school year where the days get longer and evenings are peppered with band…
READ MOREYou’re Doing Great (and Other Truths from God and Bluey)
“You’re doing great.” Three words from a cartoon dog were all it took to wreck me. They’re said in an episode of my son’s favorite cartoon, Bluey. (Ok, my favorite too.) The title of the episode is “Baby Race,” and in short, it’s a seven-minute emotional roller coaster where Bluey’s mom, Chili, shares the story…
READ MOREFerocious Motherlove
It was my second-born son’s first date night, and the cute couple had planned an evening at the Washington County Fair with his big brother and friends. That night, I couldn’t wait to hear how it went. I envisioned them leaning close in their baggy jeans standing in lines below bright jolting rides, drinking torso-sized…
READ MOREIt was a morning like any other, except for the chainsaws. They started early—before my two-year-old was even up—and continued on well past her afternoon nap. While the coffee brewed, I peeked out the back window and saw them: hard hats in highlighter yellow dotting the tree line, and our tree in particular. Our urban…
READ MOREIn the Chinese language, the word for good is made up of two parts: the word for feminine and the word for son or child. I am considered thoroughly lucky and blessed to have borne a daughter, followed five and a half years later by a plucky son. 好 It is good. It was good,…
READ MOREOutside the nursery, darkness sets. Behind the red black-out curtains, not a hint of light breaks through. I rock back and forth with my head against the chair, newborn Charlotte’s small body leaning into mine, the only light coming from a small night light across the room. Together we close our eyes to the sound…
READ MOREThe mattress sags beside me as my husband sits down, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. My puffy face reveals an evening spent crying, but by now there are no tears left. My hands are balled in my lap, and the evidence of my anxiety is the half-moon indentations from my nails against my palms.…
READ MOREI lean back at the bottom of the blue plastic slide, aware of my hair sticking to the static, the sandburs piercing the soles of my shoes, and our English words echoing off the wall that lines the perimeter of the park, our clunky foreignness flittering up to the open windows. The playground in this…
READ MORELessons on Goodness from the Basketball Court and Beyond And God saw everything that was created, and, indeed, it was very good. Translation inspired by Genesis 1:31 (The New Interpreters’ Study Bible) I stand at center court in an old, smelly elementary school gym as eight first-grade boys stand along the baseline, squirming with energy,…
READ MOREIt was a long-overdue dermatologist appointment. With my pale skin and family history of melanoma, I really need to be checked every year, but it had been more than five since I’d donned an open-backed gown; this was just one of many things that got lost in the shuffle of mothering small children. When I…
READ MOREThis is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, shed for you. How many times had I heard these words at Mass, even though I had converted only in young adulthood? The passion narrative punched me in the gut every Palm Sunday with the retelling of Jesus’s suffering and death.1 The same crowds…
READ MORE“Let’s be present in the rain.” It was the end of May: precisely that time of year where I’m reeling from the exhaustion of both teaching and parenting. There is so much that happens in May; it’s the busy culmination of the school year where the days get longer and evenings are peppered with band…
READ MORE“You’re doing great.” Three words from a cartoon dog were all it took to wreck me. They’re said in an episode of my son’s favorite cartoon, Bluey. (Ok, my favorite too.) The title of the episode is “Baby Race,” and in short, it’s a seven-minute emotional roller coaster where Bluey’s mom, Chili, shares the story…
READ MOREIt was my second-born son’s first date night, and the cute couple had planned an evening at the Washington County Fair with his big brother and friends. That night, I couldn’t wait to hear how it went. I envisioned them leaning close in their baggy jeans standing in lines below bright jolting rides, drinking torso-sized…
READ MORE