I was seventeen the first time I watched the Super Bowl all the way through. I’m sure it was on other years, but I could never be bothered to watch. I’d float in for the halftime show or a few commercials. The game itself felt endless, piles of people crawling across the field, lacking the…
Tag: home
{I Am} Home for Christmas
Love is not a toy, and no paper will conceal it. Love is simply joy that I’m home. Sara Barielles, “Love Is Christmas” “We’re writing letters to Santa today?” asked the eleventh graders, staring quizzically at the red and green papers I handed out on the last Friday before Christmas Break. “No,” I replied. “Letters from Santa….
The Flags of Where We’re From
It’s the first day of school, and there’s already a crowd of students gathered when I arrive. I told the seniors to arrive at the Student Center by 8:30 AM, so that we, their class sponsors, could organize the flag carrying procession for Opening Ceremonies. Punctuality has never been the strong suit of this group,…
We Didn’t Always Live in Kandern
As often happens, I have words stuck in my head. These ones aren’t the common song lyrics, though. I’m the only person I know who is haunted by lines of prose. “We didn’t always live on Mango Street.” Those used to be first words I read to my students, back at Ingraham, nine thousand miles…
Home is Wherever I’m With You
Brother Tom nodded understandingly. “It’s the memories, the old loyalties; they are so precious,” he said. “Things that meant so much, that stay present in the wood and stone of a place. If you let go of the place and the things that belong to it, you feel afraid that you’ll lose hold of the…
I Carry It In My Heart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) E.E. Cummings The Friday night recital has more people than usual, the perfect confluence of no other scheduled events and the novel introduction of clever advertising by an enterprising strings teacher. So we know who’s playing tonight, and the many of us too weary to…
On the Marktplatz
Two weeks before school begins, I’m enjoying the time of rest, planning, visiting and settling into our new apartment. Because the attic across the street was such a dear place for the last two years, I thought I should share some photos of our new home, in its mostly unpacked state. So thankful for God’s…
The Shorthand of Shared History
The sun is setting over the evergreen spiked canyon as we drive west of Leavenworth, Washington in the North Cascade Mountains. We’ve been climbing–my brother, sister, sister’s boyfriend, brother’s friend and I–for most of the afternoon, and now three of us are searching for a place to camp. “Couldn’t we just light it with toilet…
On Basketball
“Y’all ready for this?” asks the sound system on Friday night, the classic 90s warm-up playing just underneath the percussive arrhythmia of bouncing rubber balls and squealing rubber shoes, all three sounds telling us one thing: the Game is about to start. When the pre-game clock runs down to zero, most of the students in…
The Way Home 