Blog

I cut off my own hands for the promise of a cherry tree. My father never taught us better, and my mother– she was so deep in worry, keeping the world turning like the stream under a great millstone...

On feeling like you're in a "I Didn't Know I was Pregnant" teen magazine story... except it's about suddenly being in your 40s with a healthy, independent teenager who, unfortunately, can no longer validate your sense of purpose.

I would like to know why this is hard , said the prince. I would like to know why the hedge is so thick and the thorns are so sharp, and why, after I have come all this way and done so many brave deeds, I can’t take this last step. What does Valor do, at its best? How do I learn to be the prince? And… is the final task to wait? * My life is stable now. Out of the great upheaval of the pandemic came incomparable goodness: independence, kinship, love. It would seem I shouldn’t

Fatigue is a form of clutter...

We dont sacrifice TO, we sacrifice VIA...

I walked down a favorite forest road and collected cans and shotgun shells on my way back, and I thought of the story of Mother Holle. In the realm of Mother Holle, apple trees cry out to the visitor, "shake us, shake us, we are all of us ripe!" And loaves browning in the oven shout, "take us out, take us out, or we shall be burnt!" So we shake the tree and the apples fall and the branches spring back up. We set the hot loaves aside to cool and the smell of fresh bread wafts

This is the first year I can remember, ever, when I did not feel angst about the short days, the early darkness. This was the first winter solstice when I wished for more night, when I didn’t want to hurry up the lengthening of the daylight. I felt deeply calm before the turning point, and now I feel how much is coming and will potentially move through me– career and curiosity, love and friendship– I feel all the waiting, all the expanding energy here in the underground seed

All the old fears gather around the table. Some of them are defiant, daring me to say something. Some only look down, trying the old trick of being invisible by not seeing themselves. There are so many here that I look around– we look around– who is the hostess? Who is the Grown Up, anyway? Silence. Eyes meet across the table. But surely someone… someone must know what’s actually going on here? The right way to do it? The way to be Good, or at least Better? More silence, and

My little house smells like cardamom and almonds and coconut oil and maple syrup and oats because I just baked a pan of granola. It’s the first time I’ve baked granola since I moved out of my other house, which was also a bed and breakfast– which is to say since I left my marriage and set out into a hopeful and nearly blank new world less than eleven months ago. Making granola feels important, because it is. I still know the recipe by heart. A recipe I came across or came up

I’m being cozy with myself. Curious, and gentle. Quiet, on this day without work or much for obligations. I dropped my son off at school. (He was wearing a double-breasted coat, gray wool with a brilliant fuscia lining. It was a lost-and-found offering from a friend. I love that he loves it, and that I am able, in spite of all my acculturation, to let it be irrelevant that the coat was designed, tailored, and sold with a female market in mind, not a nearly 12-year-old boy). I

A friend offered to dig a hole for the apple tree I haven’t yet acquired but want to plant on this new-to-me property, and it was the nicest thing I’ve felt in a long while. By “nicest,” I mean it moved me. It shook my heart in the best way, rattling loose some rusted parts I haven’t paid attention to. I mean that it was a moment of complete trust and kindness and connection– a full body intimacy that didn’t fall into any Instagram-worthy category. It was all within. It was i

I took my Parents Forever course today. It’s not a thing I would have signed up for if it hadn’t been mandatory. (Live in MN? Have a kid? Getting a divorce? You’ll be putting in eight hours to make sure you have a basic level of skills.) It was a good program. I picked it because it was virtual and created by the University of Minnesota, and they seem like smart folks. I think I could have passed the quizzes without the course, but it only took a fraction of the eight hour a

I don’t know why, if someone’s having a hard time, I give them food. It’s not unique to me by any means, but it isn’t something that I remember as a part of my family culture as I grew up, though maybe I’m wrong: our mom always wondered if we were borderline hypoglycemic, and there was a time I told one sister’s (very new) husband that he had about thirty seconds to get her a granola bar before everything melted down. But food wasn’t how I thought of solving problems or flatt

I brought my guitar to band practice and played it. This matters because: it wasn’t hard, it wasn’t to be a Real Musician. It was because I had a song to share and this was the most obvious and efficient means. And it’s extra fun because this is the guitar my very gifted fiddler-luthier boyfriend fixed up and gave me so many years ago, and which I learned to play after we broke up (mostly) so I would stop falling for musicians. (Hey, I love that talent, but it doesn’t have an

The snorkeling goggles have been playing musical chairs (too small, already have a pair, etc, etc), and most recently have been renting a corner of the counter at work, waiting to go home to a younger kid. But thank goodness for the delays of real life: today Pat put them on. That’s all. That’s it. You had to be there. He didn’t do anything funny or say anything in particular. He just wore a pair of child’s snorkeling goggles and it was the best thing I saw all day. #DaysDeli

What a thing to not overcook the sirloin. To mince the garlic and slather the steak in last year’s tomato butter (forgotten in the freezer but still so damn good!). To have no white wine and so deglaze the pan with a nice dry cider (brewed just down the road in Duluth), and then to drink the rest of it with dinner. To add Gouda in thin shavings, hunks of an heirloom tomato sawed off without regard for looks, and top it all with a few small basil leaves, plucked from the bouqu

Lake trout caught by da local boys. Wild rice harvested by my sister (last year’s; this year’s is being processed). Beets and chick peas with tarragon and sage. Squash with my family’s maple syrup. And strawberry crumble made in my granny’s tartlet pans. — until all of us were stuffed, “gloriously bloat,” to quote I Capture the Castle . — until I was almost too full for a cup of the homemade, hand-picked tea. — all the way up to falling asleep under the stars, the sky bright

I made a list of what I miss today, and it made room to take a breath, be Here. I discovered, in the archeological dig that is my relationship with myself, that I don’t feel at home in my life yet. That it feels like I’ve moved to a foreign country and nothing has settled into its groove, or at least nothing in the kitchen. And that was good, too. Understanding and having a Beginning-Middle-End can be addictive, but it also drops an anchor: Ohhhh! That’s what’s going on under

I baked a squash and washed all the dishes. Listened to a little romantic accordion on a Café Paris playlist before returning to the combination of quiet and conversation. The house was warm and smelled cozy. The kitchen still awaits such a facelift, such a rearranging to match what I see in my mind. But it’s a good home, and a good feeling to be at home here; to wash the floor and wipe the counters and fluff the pillows not for anyone else but myself. And then to share it, n

Sleeping on the deck, futon mattress pulled off the frame, plenty of blankets piled up against the chill of the September night, bright stars high above (but feeling close and friendly). The moments when the whole body is open and feeling everything– joy, delight, wonder, fatigue, warmth, cold– feel holy. Being one being, all the too-often-independent parts merged together, and then expanding that connection and permeation to the whole night sky, to the animal-vegetable-mine