We women spend a lot of time on our hair, don’t we? I do. I found my first gray hair when I was 18, a senior in high school. A classmate loudly said, “Sarah, I see a gray hair!” It began. A box of Feria and two hours in the bathroom. I’ve been doing it ever since, though after moving to Chicago I graduated from a box to a salon chair. For a while it wasn’t too bad, until after... Read more
Well, oops. Life is crazy. But here I am, with more poems to share. Since I missed a few days, today, a few poems. Atticus and I have this crazy dream to have a lake house someday. We both just love a lake. We fell in love walking around lakes at Notre Dame, and that big lake in Chicago. We are water people, and this poem shares our dream. The Lake Isle of Innisfree W.B. Yeats I will arise and... Read more
Since finishing Hannah Coulter (my goodness YES I am still talking about this book), I have been thinking a lot about place, and the places that have made me. One of the biggest of these must be Chicago. I grew up when I moved to Chicago. I was truly on my own for the first time in that city of the Big Shoulders. I made the transition from starry-eyed college girl to a woman who had, for the first time,... Read more
I finished Hannah Coulter last night. After spending the last 100 pages or so in tears, sometimes full on sobs, I can say I was somewhat relieved when it was over. But then, oh then, I was so desperate to know what happens next. To know if the farm lives on in the Culter family or floats away as so many family farms have. HC is the type of book I would have probably not read if not for the... Read more
In my deeply entrenched love for poetry, I have decided to share a poem a day for the whole of October. Since I am reading one of Wendell Berry’s novels, Hannah Coulter, at the moment, I’m going to kick off this bonanza of verse with one of Mr. Berry’s own. The Peace of Wild Things When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and... Read more
This year, I said, I’m going to get my act together. We are going to celebrate the feast of St. Michael. We are going to eat a roasted animal and some kind of apple dessert. We are going to pray and damn it, there will be at least one angel craft. Never mind a few small facts: I have three children under age 4. Two-thirds of my children are infants. We are trying to get our house ready for the... Read more
As I sit here drinking my own pumpkin spice latte concoction, complete with kitten marrow (or so I hear), all I have to say is… In other news, Notre Dame football started on Saturday. They won. No big. The Fumbles clan was all decked out for the first game, complete with very fierce game faces. This is how she smiles now. In every single picture. Future Domer, right here. Class of 2036 (sweet Jesus someone hold me) look out. After... Read more
If you’ve been around here any length of time, you know I love me some Bruce Springsteen. His latest album, High Hopes, is wonderful. I love it. One of the songs hit me this morning as I was driving to Costco. Ferguson has been sitting so heavy on my heart lately. A young man dead. An officer accused. A community in flames, with years of pain, resentment, and anger boiling over into people in the streets. Demanding to be listened... Read more
Every time I turn on the evening news, log onto Facebook, or check my email, I brace myself. I literally wince because I am so damn nervous about what comes next. What monstrosity this vale of tears will manage to throw together next. A never-ending litany of pain, violence, and heartbreak. Sweet Jesus what the hell is going on? Ebola outbreaks. Yizidis chased up a mountain with only the clothes on their backs. Christians facing persecution, expulsion, rape, or even... Read more
Today I just want to share a poem that struck me because it reminded me of my life, of all the things I want to remember and get right. Of how I want to grab on to these moments and wring every precious morsel of joy from them before they float away like a let-go balloon. After all, in my more lucid moments, I realize that these are the “good old days” that someday I’ll remember fondly. They... Read more
Fumbling Toward Grace
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