Pee
I do not like cat pee. Sadly, I’ve been dealing with it for a while. And I’m tired. So tired. Cats are territorial, which creates difficulties when you try to introduce a mature cat into a home that already has mature cats. They don’t want to share space. Or litter boxes. When my son taught school for two years in Mississippi, he gave the name Crookshanks to the small cat he took in, the one who greeted him at the end of each day and gave him a sense of family. She was an odd little animal who held her head at an awkward angle and had a broken tooth, perhaps from being hit by a car. She was Chris’s faithful companion and he couldn’t leave her behind when he finished his program and returned home to prepare for his wedding. After...
Silence
I am learning something about words and silence. Namely, that I need to use fewer words and be silent more often. Verbally expressing what is in our hearts may serve to extinguish the fire in our souls. Though the words we say might be good, encouraging words, letting them out somehow reduces their intensity. As Henri Nouwen discusses so beautifully in The Way of the Heart, citing references from Vincent van Gogh and Diadochus of Photiki, when we leave the door open, the heat inside the room rapidly dissipates. I experienced this recently when, in my excitement over God’s leading and a resulting wonderful outcome, I spoke about it. The friends with whom I shared were close as sisters and have frequently joined me in prayer. Even so, the sharing diminished...
Earring
Where did it go? That’s the question when the earring you’re about to attach to your ear lobe slips from your grasp. While you’re sitting on the toilet. Not everyone can accessorize while using the bathroom, but I’m a multi-tasker. Sometimes that can be risky. I had just finished arranging my orange/red infinity scarf around my neck atop my black shirt. The shiny gold strands would go well with my gold teardrop earrings, I thought, so I grabbed their small velvet box on my way to the restroom. Soon as I was seated, I removed one and that’s when it happened. Dropped it. So simply. So quickly. Did it fall inside my shirt? My bra? Was it hidden within the folds of my scarf? In my underwear? Did it slip between my thighs and land in the...
Drones
The Cumberland Homesteads, located on the Cumberland Plateau near Crossville, Tennessee, was a 1930s-era homesteading project started by FDR as part of his New Deal. About 250 families were relocated to the project, where they used sweat-equity to build homes for themselves. The hope was that the people would thrive on their own small farms, leaving poverty behind. Though the Cumberland Homesteads was the most successful of 100 similar communities established around the country, it was short-lived since it was never became self-supporting. Neither the community store nor cannery survived due to lack of experienced managers; other industry never relocated to the area. By 1945, the federal government ceased being involved in the project and those homesteaders who...
Four O’clock
“So this is how it begins.” I just looked at George, with no idea what he was talking about. It was 3:30 in the afternoon and we were bundling up to take Prince for a walk in our ice-covered neighborhood. Our town had been shut down for two days because of the weather so while George would have been home anyway enjoying retirement, I’d also been at home because I couldn’t drive to my office. Our normal routine is to feed the dog at 4:00 every day, then take a walk. I usually join the guys since I leave work about that time. But having both George and me home all day had confused Prince; he was clamoring for his dinner by 3:00, so George gave in and fed him. Thus, the early walk. But he had already done the feeding, so what did he think was...
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