making space for creativity
My first memory of church is of my Godmother. It must have been in the fall of 1987 because in my memory, I am shyly looking down at the church chairs that could attach and detach, and avoiding saying hi to her. I can hardly believe that there was a time that I wasn’t…
The summer when I was 12, my family drove up to New Hampshire for a week. I remember knowing that the people we were going to stay with were my parents’ friends and mentors from college. My family had just moved to New Jersey and now we were no longer too far away to…
As the back to school catalogs are pouring into my little steel mailbox, the cable sweaters and matching notebooks tell me that Fall is just around the corner. This Fall is my first fall as a teacher’s spouse with Evan starting student teaching in only 12(!) days. It’s also been a full ten years…
One part of cultivating creativity is that you need to feel safe enough to take risks and be yourself. You have to make a space in your home and your heart to feel free to be you and to write, or paint, or dance, or just be. When I think of spaces like that,…
Last Friday morning we got a late start heading out to the beach. I find that determining when you set out is a pretty common tension on vacation days. On the one hand you want to get an early start, to stretch day out, and soak up the sun. Then on the other hand,…
When I was little, Fourth of July celebrations were marked with red and blue frosted cupcakes, little plastic flags in the lawn near the lake, potato salad and wet towels, before mosquito bites and 9:30 fireworks. It was easy to smell that mix of slightly burned hotdogs, sunscreen, and lake water and celebrate. …
Church retreat weekends have always had a special place in my heart. I love the change of scenery and being in nature. I particularly love the way that being apart from the routine seems to stretch time. It allows you to look back on yourself and your life in new ways. Each spring, our…
Last Sunday our church moved to its new summer home. This is the fifth space that we have regularly worshiped in over the past six years, just now overtaking the number of apartments that my husband, Evan, and I have shared over the same time span. As I stood toward the front of our…
At Yellowstone, there are signs that ask people to not throw coins (or anything else) into the whimsically named colorful springs and pools. Since ancient time, waters have been seen as places of healing and life, where little water spirits might dwell and grant a wish whispered with a coin thrown. The sacrament of…
When my brother and I were little, we used to play a game on long car rides called “In My Suitcase.” One of us would start out saying, “In my suitcase you will find” and then name something, like “five pairs of teal polka dotted socks.” The other person would then respond, “In my…
I have found growing friendships after college to be slow work. In college, it was a bit like scattering wildflower seeds on a fertile hillside. In only a few weeks or months, I had a beautiful array of budding blossoms. But after college, it seems that friendships mature more like trees. The growing seasons…
Seven Springs ago, when Evan and I were falling in love, we spent a lot of time outside walking, picnicking, and just being out in the sunshine after the long Illinois winter. One of our best early dates was to the gorgeous local arboretum. That summer when he visited me in northern Wisconsin,…
