simply me and jeans

Aging is such a strange thing.  We observe it so clearly in our youth and hardly recognize it at all as we experience it in real time. My stiff joints, spotty memory and lined skin is shocking at times but, for all intents and purposes, my brain still functions as if I were twenty something.  I catch […]

I float through the dark as hoards of shadows crash into me. Pushing me every which way until I lose sight of light…of land…of life.  With one hand I search for something solid and with the other I swat away faceless figures. The disoriented and futile fight leaves room for more shadows to creep into […]

My Daddy taught me to love gardening and I think of him every year around Valentine’s Day.  Why? A couple of reasons. One is that he always brought me the first Narcissus bloom around this time each year. As we reminisced about that, I told mom that I was sorry he didn’t bring them to […]

(This refers to a book my Dad loved called Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach) Sitting among giant cacti. Watching the sun set. The silence almost otherwordly. I hear some sort of bird flying by. It seems so out of place, as if it had lost its way in the world and ended up in […]

I don’t like to be wrong, but sometimes it’s worse to be right. I’m a worrier by nature. I routinely fear that the worst will happen so I’ve learned a tool that has helped me combat those worries over the years. I remind myself that our fears hardly ever happen. Being attacked by a shark, […]

Sun – Moon Spring – Winter Day – Night Joy – Pain It’s all life. It’s all yours. It’s all good. There’s not one without the other. No power in love without the possibility of losing it… Someday…Someway… Even when it’s too early and even when it doesn’t make sense and everything seems like insanity. […]

“Try to lighten someone’s load or make them smile. You never know what their day has been like and what pain they’re carrying.” If I had to list the top 10 lessons that I’ve learned from my parents and hope to emulate , this would be one of them. We’ve all had days that knock […]

There are seasons in our lives that God uses to change us and teach us things we may not otherwise have seen.  We don’t usually plan for those seasons and they’re seldom enjoyable, but they’re gifts of grace none the less. A few people have asked me how I’m doing after the events of the […]

The last three weeks have been crazy! They’ve not only been the darkest and loneliest weeks of my life but also the most powerful, impacting and supported time of my life.  I know that’s contradictory.  The whole journey has been a picture of contradiction.  Death and life.  Faith and fear. Solitude and support. Waiting and […]

As I walked back to the hotel tonight, I passed the workers setting up for the Sunday market and suddenly realized we have been in Paris more than a week.  Last Sunday we bought some bread, cheese and veggies and had a solemn picnic in the park before going to see how Steve was doing […]