a piece of my mind

Everyday Courage

At the fruit stand across the highway from my turn off I see an old man sweeping every day, sweeping, until the lot is clean. Every day the trees litter, the leaves blow back across, and he sweeps it clean once again. His once tall back is curved now, in […]

Read More

What Christmas Songs Tell Us About Hate

It’s all around us this time of year, if we listen. Subversive, revolutionary ideas about how the world ought to be fill the air. Our ears ring with the promise of hope, life, light in the darkness, the broken made whole, those who are oppressed finding justice, those who are […]

Read More

On Not Taking Things For Granted

We play a little thought game sometimes, my husband and I. It’s simple really. We take what we know about the people we meet, and we speculate on what their life would have been like if they had been able to access the same resources we had when we were […]

Read More

Love Your Enemy

Last night I had the privilege of meeting a young man who is Rohingya. His father is Muslim, his grandfather is Muslim, his relatives are all Muslim. He himself has a doctorate degree in Islamic studies. In 2012 the people of Rakhine state attacked and killed the Rohingya people, burning […]

Read More

Thoughts on Marriage, sixteen years in.

2000 When Aaron asked me to marry him, he did it three times. (I wrote about the first time here.) He says he wanted to give me lots of opportunities to back out. The third time came after a period where I kept making plans for the next year, assuming […]

Read More

An Embarrassment of Riches

She carefully hands me the coins she has swept up from the corners of my bedroom, this change I didn’t even notice was missing. The way she holds them and places them in my hands tells me that she would notice. Her life is so hardscrabble and close to the […]

Read More

When Reality Doesn’t Conform to Expectations

The other night Bam Bam woke up in a mood. You know the kind. He’s not hungry, he’s not thirsty, he doesn’t want to any hugs or kisses he just wants something inane, that only makes sense to his little sleep addled brain. In this case he wanted me to […]

Read More

On Being a Broken People

Thursday morning I drove to the airport in L.A. where Aaron and the Boy boarded their flight to Thailand. They are spending Christmas holiday helping out at the orphanage, among many other things. We were listening to the BBC radio broadcast, World Have Your Say, in the car on the […]

Read More

Promise to my Daughters

Dear Daughters, As you continue to grow, not only in size, but in beauty and brains and all that good stuff, I feel the need to make you a couple of promises. I promise, as you enter into the full blush of womanhood to not stand behind you in the […]

Read More