“Have you ever been apple picking?” my friend Leila asked.
“I’ve always wanted to go.” I kept my eyes on the road for our exit.
“I’ll tell you the trick,” said Leila. “You have to twist the apple. If it’s ready, the stem breaks right off. But when the fruit isn’t ripe, it simply won’t come off. You can keep twisting and twisting, and it still won’t come. Or you could force it off, but then it won’t taste good. You can’t tell just by looking.”
”So You don’t know until you try,” I said.
Amidst a sea of positivity, I let one voice stop me from swimming. Anyone relate? I had a funny idea. One that makes me laugh just thinking of it. An idea that others joined in with amusement and encouraged me to try. Did I listen to their voices? Nope. Did I let the voice of one friend, who laughed (not in a good way) at my idea get to me?
YES!
Read MoreDuring the pandemic, I tend to begin messages this way— “I hope this email finds you well during this surreal season.” Whether it’s a work contact I’ve never met or someone I’ve known for years, I imagine saying so much more. Let’s face it, this one-sentence greeting barely scratches the surface of what may be happening off screen in their daily lives—of how the email really “finds” them. I want to reach through the ether and just give them a hug. I think about the words I wish to share…
Read MoreMISSION: Find and eat the sugar cubes! As kids, we spent HOURS playing church hide and seek. We felt like finding sugar cubes was a simple extension of the game. Parish halls = coffee. Coffee = sugar. Simple math.
When we were really young, sugar cubes were still a thing and our dad was a visiting minister. We had many new territories to explore. We tested unlocked doors, snuck into nurseries and scoured cupboards. The entire campus was our playground.
Read MoreI clip into my spin bike and look around the room. I spot the familiar faces and think, These guys are always here. They must come all the time. Way more than me.
Before I even start the workout, I beat myself up a bit. Why?
The music starts to speed up. I catch my rhythm and try to dismiss the thoughts.
Read MoreAround 11pm, I exited the highway onto a double turn lane. In the left lane, I inched out for a right on red. The truck next to me, pulling a giant trailer, followed in full force. They gunned their gas and I watched as momentum swung the trailer into my lane. I sped my VW Beetle into the opposite side of the double yellow. One car, in oncoming traffic, switched lanes…
Read MoreI walked into the dark IMAX theater a few minutes late. Without my special 3D glasses, I saw fuzzy orange butterfly images and greenery. In the crowd, kids stood in front of their chairs with their arms out in expectation. I chose a seat up high so I could enjoy the movie and the children trying to catch monarch magic.
Read MoreRoaches. They haunt my first memories. In Lubbock, TX circa age two, my twin sister and I both woke up from bad dreams. We set out to seek comfort. Reaching our parents required a journey across the house.
We knew endless dark bugs waited for us.
Read MoreMy little VW Beetle was parked close to a curb at a friend’s house. Their grassy lawn sat on the other side. As I opened the door to get in, the sharp lime-green corner stuck in the earth. As hard as I pulled, I couldn’t get it free.
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