Maggie was my yoga teacher the summer I was sickest. Young and healthy, kind without being showy about it, she is a memorable character from that time of trying to hold together what was falling apart. I’d already stopped running because illness had made me too frail. The constant pain and pressure in my intestinesContinue reading >>
I get awfully emotionally seeing the people I love receive the Eucharist. When I was quite ill with Crohn’s, before surgery put me into remission, I was often unable to stand through mass. I would hoist myself out of the pew with my parents or brother or now-husband, and would weep at the sight ofContinue reading >>
I am a Catholic woman. Despite this, I’ve never quite been comfortable with the Catholic Woman ™ movement. As a single woman into my thirties I felt out of place. Now that I’m married the paradigmatic Catholic Woman ™ still alienates me: I kept my birth name. I kept my professional ambition. I’m not sacrificiallyContinue reading >>
I hope I don’t die in the spring. I remember exactly where I was when I had that disconcerting thought. I was driving with the sunroof open through the busiest intersection of my urban neighborhood, looking up at a billboard while the sun glared behind it. The city workers had started putting barrels of flowersContinue reading >>
This time last year I was home on medical leave, and my soon-to-be-husband was working morning shifts. He would wake around 2:00 am, which didn’t bother me much since I had nowhere to be. We’d chat before he said goodbye and I’d laze back to sleep, usually rising just before the winter’s late sunrise toContinue reading >>
