I say yes to…
My writing group reviews each other’s work each week. But we ended our latest class in new way, with a writing prompt to get our creative juices flowing. The prompt was, “I say yes to…” and this fell out of my pen, and I thought I’d share it here. I say yes to gratitude. To…
Making Grace
Then came the editing. Oh, the editing. Who wrote this drivel? Writing is fun. Self-editing is the price you pay for it.
Just another gun threat
How has it become the norm to hear about guns in schools? How has it become commonplace to send our kids to school after there has been a threat? How did we get here?
9 Day Zion, Grand Canyon, Sedona Trip Itinerary and Recommendations
Start in Vegas- Zion- Antelope Canyon- Grand Canyon- Sedona-Fly out of Phoenix My mom always said, “A viajar es vivir,” or to travel is to live. And she was right, like most things she said. Our kids’ spring breaks overlapped this year so we decided to head west. Our trip that started in Las Vegas…
Easter Sunrise at the Grand Canyon
I mean, they’re just a lot of rocks. This was the thought that went through my head when sitting with friends that had just returned from a huge western road trip last summer. I sat through what felt like endless pictures of different land formations. Some very pretty, others less impressive. While I ooh’ed and…
The Tray
When Len and I had just gotten married, my mother in law, Angela, bought me a big bamboo tray. While I thanked her with a smile, I internally rolled my eyes at the gift. I felt like her insinuation was that I would be a 1950’s-style housewife in heels and a skirt, serving her beloved…
Our Bailey
We were hungover when we got her. My husband, Len, and I had stayed at a friend’s house in Annapolis and partied all night with our work friends. On the ride home, we looked over and saw the sign at our local PetSmart: “Adoption Fair today.” Still foggy-brained, we looked at each other and decided…
Food Time Travel
Our friends came over the other night with take out from one of our favorite places here in Charlotte. It’s a Mexican place that has fresh-made tortillas, great salsas, and a butchery in the back that also has prepared meats. My friend, Renata, had taken her girls with her to pick up the meal. She…
A Much Needed Snow Day
January 17, 2022 It’s the most simple thing. Frozen water. But the joy it brings when it falls from the sky Is outsized. The first peek out the window as soon as the eyes open. The preparation- plentiful and cumbersome. Finding the hats, the scarves, the snow boots. Double socks, double pants. Layers, layers. The…
Wildflowers
On the way home from a visit to Virginia two years ago, we stopped at her gravesite. It had been a whirlwind weekend, with my niece’s college graduation celebration, a brunch with our old neighborhood family, a visit with our old nanny. The kids were tired, Len and I were tired, and we still had…
What is Patriotism?
I’m confused. In the world that is topsy turvy, up is down right now, an especially confusing conundrum has presented itself and I need help understanding it. A terrible scourge has swept the planet. We can sit and point fingers at who started it and study how it spread, but at the end of the…
Mami’s Magic
I DREAMT ABOUT HER LAST NIGHT. WE WERE VISITING A COLLEGE I WANTED TO GO TO. I WAS YOUNGER, SHE WAS YOUNGER AND WE WERE HAPPY AND HEALTHY. Walking the campus, I noticed a water spigot that had been left running and was causing some water to pool in a parking lot. “Watch this,” I…
Daughters of Immigrants
It’s hard not to notice spring. The exuberance, the display, the sheer beauty of it. The tips of the Hostas’ curved like pointed toes of ballerinas, ready to dance out of the brown patches of earth as they unfurl. Blossoms in every color so beautiful, so precious, it’s hard to do anything but love them,…
COVID Blessings
For my son it was time outside. Riding bikes, playing football, even fishing on breaks from Zoom calls. His lunch hour a race from his desk to the park. A leap of independence. For my daughter it was board games. Sitting at the table, with pizza or mom’s latest creation playing Monopoly, or Labyrinth. A…
Sprouts
A new leaf on my Philodendron is sprouting. Still tightly wound, I celebrate its existence, like a new birth. Totally disproportionate to its size or importance, the sight of it brings joy. And I check on it each day as it slowly unfurls. I think back to when my children would sprout a…
Where Good Things Grow
I’ve been missing DC a lot lately. We moved to Charlotte six years ago for my husband’s job, but in my heart, home will always be Northern Virginia. Something about this time of year brings me back to my visits to the U.S. Botanic Garden, one of my favorite spots in the nation’s capital. It’s…
A Listener
I pick up my phone and look at it. She won’t pick up. She won’t see a text. I scroll through contacts. Someone else to tell? About the meal I made- the recipe I loved, the chicken with the crispy skin but the veggies were too charred. To share about how we planted our garden…
Who Wins When We’re Divided?
While reading Amazing Women, a book highlighting female leaders, artists, scientists and explorers, to my daughter the other night, I came across a section on Maya Angelou. The book noted her storied career as a writer, and quoted from her poem “Human Family”: “We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike,” and it hit…
Back to Our Roots
In a holiday season that had more screen time than years past thanks to hunkering down for the COVID-19 virus, I recently sat to fold laundry and turned on the TV while my kids were busy in other parts of the house. I pecked around, wanting something that I could enjoy without having to pay…
A Letter to America
America… You’re growing up. The freedoms that you fought for and baked into your inception have invited a diversity that has never before been seen anywhere else on the planet.
Lessons from Melania
As we near the close of Melania Trump’s first and only term as First Lady, I’ve been thinking about what we might have learned from her time in this incredibly important role. While she didn’t campaign as a First Lady that would have a strong public platform, one could see the possibility of a lovely…
My American Dream
One night, two and a half years ago, when I was tossing and turning on the floor of my daughter’s room trying to help her go to sleep, this speech came to me. It feels crazy to even write those words because, really, who am I giving speeches to? When I woke up, I sat…
Thank you, Coco
It took a Disney movie to teach me what my Mami attempted to instill in me every year of my childhood. The day after Halloween, we would go to church for All Saints Day, but for her and her homeland of Guatemala, the days following Halloween were a celebration of Dia de los Difuntos, or Day…
The Language of the Sigh
My mom had a sigh. It came from the depths of her soul and whenever she used it, you could feel the weight of it as she exhaled. I hated it when she used her sigh on me. It was usually her response to my complaints about any number of things. How one of my…
WWJD Election 2020
Leading into the upcoming election, there is a lot of anxiety. I can say that I feel it acutely. I find myself having the classic flight or fight responses to news articles and at the same time, am exhausted by the divisiveness and anger that seems to be on everyone’s lips and fingertips these days,…
The Key to Happiness
What is the key to happiness? It’s a question we all ask ourselves. The answer, probably different for each of us. Thankfully I’m old enough now to know that the key doesn’t come in the form of a person, a body size, the perfect job, or things. That’s what forty years will teach you. For…
What Do We Do Now?
We quarantined. We homeschooled. We shifted our work to zoom calls and everyone grew a beard. We shared tips on how to use clippers to give our sons haircuts, and laughed about showing our own true hair color. We virtually toured zoos and museums. We planted gardens. We grew yeast for homemade breads. We threw…
A Viajar es Vivir
A viajar es vivir, my mom used to say. To travel is to live. I think she attributed the saying to a former president of Guatemala. My mom did travel. Mostly to her home country to visit and care for her mother and aunt. Sure there was the occasional trip by bus to her favorite,…
The Roller Coaster of Quarantine
It’s become our quick hello of quarantine. “How you guys holdin’ up?” comes the passer-by as we sit on our front porch. “Oh you know, ups and downs”, followed by a quick example of either a high or low, depending on the mood. Ups and downs. Always both in the same day, sometimes in the…
Does the End Overshadow the Life?
My mother had lived 73 years when she died. But my children, who were five and three at the time, only seem remember the end. Walking today with my youngest, Sophia, now 7, she asked me why her abuelita’s partner kept asking for help. What partner? Who could she be referring to? I asked some…
The Cost of Moment of Escape
I just wanted to paint my nails. Its Wednesday in the third week of homeschooling and quarantine, and after a day of zoom classes, cajoling work out of the kids, making homemade split pea soup, I just wanted a break. A break from the family, a break from the kids. I just wanted to sit…
Notre Dame is Burning
(Written 4/15/19) The Cathedral before the fire And just when it feels like everything is burning, it actually is. News broke today that the Cathedral of Notre Dame was on fire. Thankfully, firefighters put it out in time to save the building, but the roof and spire are gone. Recently in a church group, I…
My Family’s Immigration Stories
Today, at a long red light, I’m scrolling Facebook and I see the headline, “Woman Ran Over Girl Because She was ‘A Mexican’, in the New York Times. I was coming back from picking up a Christmas present for my husband, listening to the Holly station on the radio, singing along to the music. But…
LoveWinsCLT
Three years ago today, a group of moms from my daughter’s preschool and I planned an event. A rally. We had never done anything like it before. Or since. In the reaction to the campaign and election results of the 2016 Presidential election, my friends and I decided to put despair into action. The initial…
BC vs. AD
Written 3/5/18 I found the theater ticket to the Wizard of Oz in my purse yesterday. The date was July 7, 2016. The last happy day for me for a very long time. The day before we found out. My life will always have a BC and AD now. My husband, Len, and I had…
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Landings: musings at life's intersections 
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