For the Ones Who Make Us Smile as the Plane Goes Down
To this day, I’m not sure how close that plane was to crashing. Suffice to say, I certainly believed we weren’t going to make it … but an unsung hero helped me to stay calm. I’m no stranger to flying; in the past 6 weeks alone, I’ve boarded 11 flights for speaking engagements. Ordinary turbulence is no big deal. Yet I’ve never experienced anything like what happened on that flight. I was 15, flying home from Italy with my parents, brother, and best friends. We’d traveled abroad for a church gathering, and after a week of eating gelato and saying...
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On Accepting Yourself (Even if Self-Checkout Tries to Shame You)
Once upon a time I was at a Walmart in Alabama, doing my best not to be a Jersey girl. That is, I was trying not to rush and dash and move at twice the speed of other shoppers. (Talk about accepting yourself.) Every checkout line was long, so I headed to self-checkout. My pragmatic husband loves self-checkout: the efficiency! The autonomy! The lack of interaction! I would rather go to a cashier, though. I like cashiers. They’re people, which means they’re family. Self-checkout and I … we just don’t get along. I try to be careful, but I always...
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Take It & Run: On Soul Trains & the One Necessary Thing
My husband and I moved from DC to Alabama over a year ago. It's been a year of renovation and renewal, and it has gone by so terrifyingly FAST. There have been some lonely times, when I wondered why we decided to pull up roots and say goodbye to beloved friends. There have been some frustrating times, when I wondered how I'd ever learn to drive a stick-shift pickup. And there have been times – like this past weekend – when it all just came together and made sense. My husband and I hosted two guests from DC, my lifelong...
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Overhearing that Argument (A Lesson Learned in Laughter)
Overhearing one's parents fight is among the most terrifying things in the world for a child (and for a teenager, and for an adult, too). My brother and I have been very fortunate in this regard; our parents love one another and have stayed together through difficult times. But they're human. They've had moments. I can remember waking up in the night and hearing the argument. I was maybe 16 at the time. Somehow, being awakened by my mom and dad fighting was worse than being awakened by Willie having a meltdown. By then, I expected Willie to have meltdowns...
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