A friend once gave me an 'end of the day' clay bead - a bead made of the remnants of all the beads that had been created that day. She gave it to me when I was pregnant with my son, my last child, and was facing new…
"It is not beauty that endures, it is love that makes us see beauty." - Leo Tolstoy In 2010, I sold my beautiful 1908 Craftsman home in a small railroad town in Montana – a home with 'good bones,' a yard full of mud and dog poop,…
When one of my children began to potty train, they were terribly frightened of the noise and size of public toilets. At the time, we lived in a small Montana town, and regularly drove over the mountain pass to the big city of Bozeman (population: 30,000) to do a…
My second daughter was born a bit early at 35 weeks. In her premature arrival, she needed more physical closeness for the first two years of her life. This child was insistent that she be held, and held by me, and I was at my wit's trying to…
One June summer day, after spending time on the water with our children and my father in law, visiting from his home in Montana, my husband complained of a headache. His headache grew as we got off the boat, so he handed me the keys and asked me to drive…
This past Sunday was one of those days that held the startling juxtaposition of the beauty and sorrow of life. As Francis Weller writes, "Our task as adults is to be stretched wide by grief and gratitude." We hold one in each hand. My morning began playing with…
Recently I shared a Saturday afternoon with Eugena Maguire, a delightful social worker and parent coach, as we recorded a conversation for her "Unpacking Depression" podcast. Our conversation stretched over the course of the afternoon - one of those delicious meetings that could go on and on for…
Today I took my dogs for a walk, traipsing our normal loop of squirrel hunting and owl spotting, ending in a bout of enthusiastic stick fetching in the nearby pond. It is sunny and hot right now in Texas – over 100 degrees hot – and I took off my shoes and…