We recently returned from a family trip to Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia — meeting up with Allegra, who’d already been traveling by herself for six weeks. We flew from Minneapolis to Sarajevo, and she took the bus into Sarajevo from Montenegro; easily, beautifully, shortly after we checked into our apartment...
Two years ago, after weeks — nae, months! — of work, I finished writing an essay, and I thought to myself, “This is my favorite thing I’ve ever written.” So I started submitting it to various publications, hoping someone, somewhere, would like it, too. Would want to publish it. Would...
April 15, 2018 Dear You: Long time, no talk! We totally need to catch up! How’d your last Lone Wolf Howling at the Moon tattoo sitting go? Did your cousin ever return your thigh-high boots? He’s not to be trusted, that one; you might need to swing by his cottage...
Gack! Here I’d hauled my cookies downtown and raced breathlessly into the lobby, readying myself for a much-needed yoga class, only to be greeted by a sign on the counter announcing a class cancellation. What made it worse was that I’d known the teacher couldn’t find a sub and there...
Perkily, she greets him. “Hi, Haakon!” As is his way, he extends a quiet hello. Then, at loose ends for the few minutes until class starts, she notices someone else she can greet. “Are you Haakon’s mom?” she asks, extending her hand towards me. As I nod, she adds, “I’m...
Things Farmers Like About February My sister-in-law, Erin, her husband, Ben, and their daughter, Allia, live on and run an organic farm in central Minnesota — selling Community Supported Agriculture shares to people in their community, providing vegetables to local colleges and Twin Cities’ school districts, and committing their values...
Things Virginia Has Written on Slips of Paper and Dropped into the Gratitude Bowl in the Narthex of the Congregational Church My dear friend Virginia has jotted down her thanks for these humble things: 1. See-through plastic bags — she can see what’s in them without taking things apart and...
It matters to this story that dusk is creeping around the edges, and thick, quiet snow is falling slowly, slowly from the sky, accumulating into a desert of white dunes outside the large picture window behind my back. She’s talking, my great pal Virginia is, as she lies on the...
