I picture myself in the early morning, when the most devoted fishermen rise and take to the water, floating in my blue-and-white boat, the sail bound tight, because the wind is extinct. I am alone. And the net I have cast is hanging limp beneath the green surface of the mire, because Christ is not beside me.
Anyone can drift. Continue reading
If we really believe the Eucharist is truly Christ—not just a symbol, but His actual flesh and blood under the guise of bread—why do we not find every Catholic facedown before the tabernacle in the churches throughout the world?
It’s a sobering question, one I have long been grappling with.Continue reading
Last year, I wrote the reflection below, tinkering with ideas for a flash-fiction contest. I happened across it again yesterday. It’s a strange experience when your own writing strikes you to the heart; that’s when you know it must have been inspired by God.Continue reading
How blessed is my life. And how strange. Here I again find myself living in the small town where I was once a teenager pedaling about on Mr. Buntwell (my vintage tricycle)—only now I am married, pushing my six-month-old baby in a stroller. We’ve wandered down every street by this point, Rosé and I, searching for hidden treasure (quaint houses for sale, or a grotto amid evergreen). She likes to ride leaning forward, clutching the tray, ready to take on the world.Continue reading
I am writing two stories. One is on paper, and the other is on the heart of my sweet Rosé.Continue reading
I am settled in a rope hammock, my bare feet gliding over the labyrinth of shadows on the ground. Rosé is perched on my lap, her skin so very pure in the sunlight, her pale hair shimmering like the finest threads of spun gold. She is blinking up at the poplars arching over us, mesmerized by the leaves fluttering like untold emerald butterflies. We’ve spent much time here together, swinging, swinging.
Some might say motherhood is monotony, but I say it is music.Continue reading
The blog I was planning to write would have been, in comparison, a boring one—something about how peaceful and beautiful the Mallett family farm is, how happy I am to be home. I would have told you about the divine smell in the air and the chorus of birds in the lofty treetops—treetops that are no longer alive and well.Continue reading
As flies begin to buzz again at the windows, Nicholas and I prepare to leave this island, this humble island that has carried us through many seasons. Astonishing to think that when I first arrived here three years ago, I was a single woman. Today, I am married to an islander and mother to an islander. God did not waste time with me.Continue reading
You are crying, little one, and I cannot fix you. But I can hold you and comfort you as best I can.
I confess, the day it finally sank in that Rosé is suffering colic, I was deeply saddened. I didn’t want to admit it was true. Before Rosé, I defined such babies by their colic. But here now is a little girl whose personality I can already glimpse, who is oh-so-sweet, delightfully bright, and curious when she is not writhing in discomfort—who is so much more than colic. Continue reading
Sometimes when I wake in the dawning morning and hear the lonely call of a bird through the window, my heart is carried away to another corner of the world. In this humble place, I cannot hear the hum of a fridge or the clinking of a radiator; I hear only the black bird hidden among an oak’s branches, my husband’s breathing, my baby’s occasional grunt. Continue reading