“Do you want to do a camel ride,” my daughter asked on a recent visit to her city’s zoo. “No,” I said. “I have no need to ride a camel.” “Oh, come on, isn’t that on your bucket list?” “Nope. Never has been and never will be,” I said, knowing a safari was never an …
Category: aging
Happiness Can Be a Woman’s Purse
Eight years ago this month, I was putting away my crutches after surgery for a broken hip. During the six weeks I hobbled around downtown Chicago, I early on discovered that I needed a purse I didn’t have to carry. Cross bodies have never worked for me. And, being a perpetual student, I’ve always liked …
Sister’s Visit – Chicago – 2014
Last week, one of my sisters came for her annual visit. As we amble through our seventies, these visits become almost sacred. Some day, hopefully not soon, our knees or our hips or our whole bodies may say, "No more travel." So while she can still hoist a suitcase onto Amtrak, and while I still …
Iowa Summer Writing Festival – A Typical Day / 2014
I love to go to Iowa. Not just to glide past the flat lands of corn on I-80, or to roll along the miles of lightly forested hills on I-88, or, as a city dweller, to have the chance to drive my 2000 Beetle anywhere, or simply to savor a McD's cone alongside the Mississippi …
Continue reading Iowa Summer Writing Festival – A Typical Day / 2014
Metaphor as Mystery
Sometimes I get weird questions from people when it comes up that I underline a lot when I’m reading a book. “Why,” they ask, “would you want to mark it all up?” I want to scream, “And why wouldn’t I? Many writers write so beautifully that I simply have to underline their spot-on character descriptions, …
Christ as Cheerleader
Imagine sitting next to your sister (or anyone), turning to look her in the eye, and saying, for the first time, “You are loved by Christ.” Last week, I did just that while attending the session of Sharon Garlough Brown, pastor and spiritual director, at the Festival of Faith & Writing. Not only that, but …
You are loved by Christ…
was my powerful takeaway last week from attending the three-day Faith & Writing Festival at Calvin College. Imagine attending sixteen one-hour sessions, plus two chapels, with speakers whose intentions were to explore the intersection of faith and writing. Consider it an immersion camp on a rolling green campus where newbies quickly learn to shed dress …
A Week of Muffins and Rain
Before I flew west a few weeks ago to teen sit my granddaughter, I set healthy goals: cut carbs, lose two pounds, climb stairs five times an hour, and walk an hour a day in their hilly green neighborhood during fifty-degree weather. I’d been unsuccessful at home with the above activities and thought, surely, with …
My work is my retirement.
“My work is my retirement, “ I said recently in a conversation with younger people about their jobs. “And,” I added, “I’m very busy.” They laughed. I’d never thought about my retirement as “my work” before. But now that I’d said it, I realized it’s true. And, unlike some who dread retirement or complain about …
Grab…Sermons, this Time
Grab. Grab. And grab some more. Last time I talked about the “grab” of first sentences in short stories. Today, it’s about the “grab” in first sentences of sermons. I’m saving a collection of both for when I get to “the home” someday. Following my mother’s example, I want a collection of reading material ready. …
Write Along with Me 