A lost gem
My father didn’t believe that I should be taught to read before I got to school. He had learned to read when he was three, and by the time his class in school got around to sounding out Dick and Jane, the teacher just let him sit in a corner with Treasure Island while she [...]
June 6, 2012
· 
Jen · 
2 Comments
Tags: love, obituary, reading · Posted in: Uncategorized
Celebrate.
Thinking back, I’m not sure when it was – winter or summer, spring or fall. Logic and the process of elimination lead me to believe it was probably sometime in 1989. I didn’t have a phone in my room but there was one in the next room over that was basically mine. It was a [...]
February 14, 2012
· Jen · No Comments
Tags: celebration, history, love · Posted in: Uncategorized
Stories to tell you.
There’s a story I’d like to tell you. Once there was a woman who met a man, and they got married the way you’re supposed to, and they had a kid the way you’re supposed to. Not much else went the way it was supposed to go, though. The ending was bad, I mean the [...]
November 14, 2011
· Jen · 6 Comments
Tags: loss, love, stories · Posted in: family
Rising up.
It rises up, the grief. It comes up at happy times, and perversely stays away at sad ones. It wants to defy anticipation. “Here is a day I will feel it,” I’ll think, and then it will not appear, only to come up at another time. When it is fresh, it doesn’t have to rise [...]
September 19, 2011
· Jen · 6 Comments
Tags: dad, grief, love · Posted in: family
Not what I expected.
I don’t tell this story that often, because I don’t feel like it’s entirely mine to tell. My grandmother passed away years ago, however, and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind me sharing the story with you. When I was maybe ten, twelve years old tops, my mother and grandmother and I took a trip together [...]
February 27, 2011
· Jen · 6 Comments
Tags: family, love, memory · Posted in: Uncategorized
for you, valentine
Another year, another love letter. For the past few years, I’ve written about different kinds of love for Valentine’s Day – love for friends, love for humanity in general, love for family. I’ve had the great good fortune to work on lots of things I love lately, experiencing love in many ways – love for [...]
February 13, 2011
· Jen · No Comments
Tags: love, observation, self · Posted in: Uncategorized
Hold the lantern high
Sing to me of glory I’ll speak to you of joy Lift a light against the darkness That shines greater than you or I
December 6, 2010
· Jen · No Comments
Tags: christmas, light, love · Posted in: faith, Uncategorized
The leaves on the trees
I’ve been singing since I could, singing at school, singing at church, singing around the house. As a little girl warbling in choirs and choruses, as a teenager taping myself wailing along with pop songs on the radio, as a tortured young adult driving around gripping the wheel melodramatically and staring into the middle distance [...]
October 17, 2010
· Jen · 2 Comments
Tags: connection, love, music, singing · Posted in: Uncategorized
Love at home.
The past two years on Valentine’s Day, I’ve taken a look at love outside of romantic love. You can take a look at 2008’s and 2009’s musings, if you’d like. When I sat down to think about love this year, the first thing to come to mind was family. It’s not surprising. It was a [...]
February 14, 2010
· Jen · 4 Comments
Tags: family, love · Posted in: Uncategorized
Scrabbling
My maternal grandmother loved to play Scrabble. When I was a little girl and she would stay with us, she and my mother would stay up late playing Scrabble and smoking, peering intently at their little trays around the kitchen table, occasionally adding new melty burn-marks to the vinyl tablecloth. How I wanted to join [...]
January 18, 2010
· Jen · 9 Comments
Tags: figuring it out, love · Posted in: Uncategorized
