We’re sitting in the glow of neon, the golden arches casting pale yellow and red on the asphalt where we’re parked. I’m sipping iced tea even thought it’s cold and we’re clutched by winters deep spell, flurries scattering around outside haphazardly lacking the stamina to collect themselves on the ground. The windshield wiper swipes at them randomly streaking the window with frost. I’ve pulled my hat down low over my unwashed hair and my arms wrap across me as if my embrace could somehow hold …
Mental Illness
On Hunger and My One Word
Every day this year I am learning resiliency. To snap back into place like so much worn out elastic, always pulled and stretched in so many conflicting directions, and my spring is gone. So often I live a stretched life of threadbare weariness, sagging at the seams where all the parts of me connect. I need the deep inhale of God each morning and then all day long as my days tread heavily and sway in a rhythm of the mundane, feeding children, teaching them, cleaning up, sneaking glances on …
When You Are Not Fine
“I don’t want to live like a vagrant anymore,” I pray. “I don’t want to be known for my lack, my weakness, my constant recurring despair.” I inhabit a limited soul longing for the wide expanse of eternity. Sometimes I wonder aloud, “How long, Lord? How long must I wait?” I first stood in line in the Walmart pharmacy to pick up my tiny orange bottle of pills that were prescribed like a life-line, a desperate measure I didn’t want to believe I needed even after the tears crashed down as I sat …
