Love Means Showing Up
Sunday morning, for the first time since the pandemic began, I went to an indoor worship service, with real people and live music. We wore masks, but we were invited to sing hymns. It was glorious. I felt nurtured and strengthened and grateful. I know better than to expect this every Sunday. When my kids
My husband and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with a quick trip to Charleston, SC last week. As we were checking into the hotel, the man helping us with our bags asked us, “Well, what’s the secret to staying married for 25 years?” Bryan and I shrugged and laughed because who knows? Certainly not
I recently saw a post online from a parent of a high school senior that said, “They’ve had so much taken away from them. They deserve a prom.” Right away, I was conflicted. Young adults in high school and college have indeed had so many important life events canceled. Missing out on these milestones and
There’s a great cartoon series by Emily Flake in The New Yorker about emerging from the pandemic and revealing our new, weirder selves to one another. She says, “In the grim cocoon of quarantine, I’ve metamorphosed into…someone else..or something else. Like a toad, but without the cool amphibian powers.” She tries to figure out how
As a fan of Deshaun Watson and as a feminist, I don’t know what to think about the allegations against him. My daughter Katie is a huge Deshaun Watson fan. While I have no idea who the quarterback was when I was a student at Clemson and don’t know who currently holds that position, Deshaun
It must be so exhausting for people of color to have to keep explaining their experiences to white people. Last week, yet another young white man, filled with rage and hate, shot and killed people who didn’t look like him. This time, it was eight people in Atlanta, including six women of Asian descent. Almost
I tend to underestimate how long anything will take. This tendency of mine has come up a few times in the past month as my family has moved across town. We moved on a Sunday and I expected us to sleep in our beds the first night, but the beds weren’t even in the house
My family is moving to a smaller house across town and I have discovered that we simply have too much stuff. For the past few weeks, I’ve been sorting and packing and condensing all of our possessions. Some days, I feel unstoppable; other days, I’m weeping into a pile of preschool artwork. It’s been a
If 2020 is mostly a blur, then these first few weeks of January are etched into my memory in exquisite detail. It’s like everything went from hazy to high-definition overnight. On January 5th, my son Caleb and I helped as poll watchers for the Senate run-off elections here in Georgia. We trained through the Democratic
On Christmas Eve, my oldest daughter held up the phone so my parents could watch my family open our Christmas presents from them. We’d all decided it wasn’t safe for us to see them over the holidays, so FaceTime was the best way for us to celebrate “together.” It wasn’t ideal, but I just kept