“Take out a sheet of manilla paper”, I heard Mrs. Kinsley say. Mrs. Kinsley is my Kindergarten teacher and today is my first day. I reach below the table and slide out the first page of a new pack. I also lifted out the brand-new box of 8 jumbo crayons. “Draw me a picture,” she
We Need Each Other
Life is hard. We need each other. This weekend I was reminded why. My Weekend I pulled on my coat and braced myself against the Friday early morning cold. My true southern blood, after a little more than 17 years, has yet to acclimate. “It’s a short walk,” I say to myself, trying to validate
What I learned from Murphy’s Traumatic Experience
If you have survived to at least teendom, you can likely name some sort of trauma you have experienced. According to a January 2022 article by the US Department of Health & Human Services, “more than 2/3 of children reported at least one traumatic event by the age of 16”. I imagine the results of
How to Prepare For Tragedy
How do we just go about life, especially after being reminded in a very up close and personal way how fragile and fleeting life can be? That is the question that has been rolling around in my head after my community was rocked by tragedy last week. It seems to me, we are always caught
Cues From Nature
Human relationships are tricky. Relationships are made especially complicated by very polarizing personal choices and tightly held beliefs. As much as I enjoy the freedoms we have, I have been so disappointed with the poor behavior I have seen displayed from every side of what I would call the “hot mess” of a world in