Take these words to heart, and let them be a balm to your soul: “The world is not as bleak or as vast as we imagine. We are stronger than we think and less alone. Other people are our armor and our barricades. They are our place of safety. Too…

I’ve recently adopted a practice where I name ten simple things I am grateful for each morning before my feet hit the ground. At first, it felt a little awkward, and I’ll admit that I initially couldn’t think of ten things beyond listing my friends and family. But then, with…

We are living in a time of in-between—the time before COVID, and the time after COVID. We are still waiting, holding our breath, easing into an uncertain world where things look and feel different than the before-time. When someone asks us, “What did you do these last fifteen months?” and…

A friend recently gave me a copy of a newspaper article titled, The Girls, by Ann Hood. Hood reminisced about her mother’s loyal group of women friends that for decades, had gathered in one another’s home every Friday night to eat dinner, gossip, and play cards. These women were prickly…

How are you, dear? It’s been so long since we’ve spoken. I know you say you are fine…but how are you, really? Our world has been upside down for so long now that the days are slipping into weeks and the weeks have turned into months and the months have…

My husband likes to get dirt under his fingernails. It’s in his DNA. Last night I found him outside on his hands and knees uprooting the few plants in our garden that had survived our wet winter weather. “You will get better light here,” he said to a clump of…

I write and enjoy breakfast with a small group of women each Wednesday morning. Now that we are all staying in our homes as the world turns upside down, we meet over Zoom so we can see one another’s faces and feel connected. We usually do a couple of very…

Autumn executed a hostile takeover in Seattle this year. One September afternoon my family was enjoying a sunny picnic at one of the many lakes around the city, and the next we were enveloped in a heavy marine layer that blew in from the Pacific and parked itself at the…

I recently watched a documentary on Amazon Prime Video called: Happy. It featured real-life stories of people around the world who, despite their circumstances, live happy lives. Something about the ideas presented in the show lingered in my thoughts for days. If happiness depends on our lives being simple and…

Take heart all you Mama and Papa bears! This beautiful bit of wisdom written by Wendell Berry offered me much comfort while raising my children. Enjoy! The Peace of Wild Things When despair grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my…

I live in the northwestern half of Washington State in a land of tall trees and cold seas where, for a few weeks a year, I feel dangerously close to slipping into a darkness-filled slump. With the addition of low-slung clouds and the threat of rain, the days feel deceptively…

My family’s Thanksgiving feast changes each year as different faces grace the table. People move away, pass away, get married, and age, and squirrelly children become vibrant young adults. For as long as I can remember, my parents have welcomed and embraced anyone who walked through their front door. And…