To my friend Sharla, who asked me to introduce her as the SGA President candidate, as I dressed up as Dolly Parton in 5th grade in front of the whole elementary school. I remember being so shy and scared but thinking it was amazing and hilarious to introduce my friend in my Dolly best, “Hi I’m Dolly and Sharla is THE candidate for SGA President.”

Enough

Is

enough.

I

Am

enough.

Thanks Dolly,

For being

MORE

Than

enough.

And teaching us

We are

Enough.

2 Corin. 3:4-5

Rummikub was only part of the equation.

A weekend with college friends.

It gave me fun, laughs, and fullness.

And to the woman who told me to go back to Sesame Street and learn my numbers when I asked her a question about mahjong.

I know exactly where to go

To learn who and what counts in life.

If you is kind.

If you is fun(ny).

You is my friend.

Living with a divided heart

Grief and Gratefulness

Loss and Hope

Doubt and Faith

Trusting in Him

Before I even look at my phone

Finite, infinite

Who am I

as the clock minutes go by?

Time calls the shots.

Takes my breath away.

Noticing the small ordinary moments.

On a backdrop of memories

and

time.

Pressed lightly in hearts

and

minds.

I used to make a 4th of July strawberry, blueberry cookie cake.

Now, a bowl of berries will do.

We get in the golf cart. We hear an airhorn. Brrrr. Then buckle ourselves in after a hot afternoon at the pool. Again, we hear it. We look at each other and nod, yes, that’s an airhorn. We start laughing, “Who are those crazy old people playing tennis in the middle of the day?” “Not us!” We stop at the mail hut and hop back on our golf cart. Resort living at its best! We ARE the crazy old people now, and we love it.

the place

We used to live…

Kindness, creativity, Columbiana

Sticky air, historic homes, Charleston

Green, spacious, Nashville

Music, city, growth

College, winning seasons, oak tree backyard, Tuscaloosa

Magic City, Crestline

Parades, community, Halloween

Full circle, Mobile

Mardi Gras, hot, azaleas

New beginnings, return to home, the bay, Fairhope

All where my heart still lives

It is quiet. I'm sitting in my chair reading. Glimmering water ahead.  So many times with Matthew, Graham, or William passed this same stretch of water.  Now each of us is on our own path.  The wispy breeze ripples my page and then, “boom!”  The cannon. It’s 4:00 p.m. Slightly startled but not.

Photo: The Grand Hotel, Point Clear, Alabama

The Inevitable

28 years

We were meant to be together

A lot of laughs

A lot of work

A lot of gratitude

Marriage

Sacred

A gift

Receiving

Growing (up) together

A lot of love

Full

Whole

Still writing itself.

All unexpected.

With me saying terrible words and unwelcoming arms.

At times,

thinking “this is the moment,” but disappointing me coldly.

Only time can roll over it with

life-giving views.

Then the light goes off, again.

The reroutes occur again.

Sometimes make sense,

Or not.

Views change.

Beauty arrives.

Knowing reroutes

Are the only way I

Could enjoy what I am seeing now.

Cheers to a Year!

A year of posting.

Committing to myself.

To writing.

To my voice.

Extinct and New

I went to get a mani/pedi.

I requested my usual colors.

They laughed.

“They don’t make your colors anymore.”

Relief hits my mind.

It confirmed a decision I made.

Old to new.

You never know when confirmation arrives.

(Written in 2025)

Take care of yourself first.

That has always been

a hard thing for me to do.

Others first

always seemed more natural.

I’m not saying this

To seem more noble,

But more as a puzzling statement.

And now,

as something

to conquer

in this stage of life.

What lies behind door one?

What can I subtract that adds to my life?

I roll over to check my phone, it’s the 3:00 am wake-up, not the official 5:30 am, time to get up. Can you relate?

At my midlife age, all I think about is sleep.

The right room temperature

Heat, whether it’s internal or external

The pillow

The blanket

The weight of the sheet

The supplement

The moment my head hits the pillow.

Turning off social media

Reading

The amount of sleep

Forecasts

Tomorrow’s sanity

Is it too early or too late

not

to overthink?

plentiful green

rolling layers

of understanding

arms open

afraid to dream

but afraid not to

What dream feels possible for you right now?

Light

love

simple

laughing again

the beautiful

mundane

Triggers

feel like a bed of thorns.

So I rearrange my thoughts.

With a cup of coffee,

or a walk.

Then gratitude returns.

Birthdays

are one of them.

Expectations crowd in.

Mine

or yours.

I want quiet.

Maybe with others.

Maybe not.

Fulfilled.

Just to be here.

The joy of baseball

Slow, hot days.

Hilarious moments.

Blue cotton candy mouths.

Weekend trips watching the Atlanta Braves,

the Chicago Cubs,

the New York Yankees,

and the Boston Red Sox.

Little League.

Taking it so seriously.

Miniature life lessons.

Running

or not,

all over the field.

Parents, grandparents,

and the entire family ensemble

cheering in the stands.

Home runs or strikeouts

Both spectacular,

and part of it.

Teams are truly rooting for each other.

The red, dusty dirt fades away.

But those memories do not.

Sitting in the stands,

playing on the team,

replaying the stories to ourselves,

or telling them to each other.

Whether my son thought travel ball took him to Tokyo or London,

not the neighboring town.

Or the Owls won the World Series. In our eyes, they did.

They won everything that was meant to be won at that moment.

We were all part of it.

The joy—

of baseball.

I sat down to write.

Nothing.

Read scripture.

A shift.

A stillness.

No giving. No fixing.

Taken November 2021, Norton Museum of Art, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, “Typewriter Eraser, Scale X”, 1999

Standing at this monumental piece of art.

At first, it seems silly.

But then I ask myself—

Could I roll this over the moment I don’t want to remember?

A mistake I made.

What I said.

What was said to me?

Or the time I used it to make myself smaller?

The longer I am here, the heavier it becomes.

Can those bristles wipe away the hurt?

Echoes.

Erasers.

Sunrises.

Sunsets.

Mimic a do-over.

The hurt is still there.

I make a choice,

to move forward

with something larger than myself.