Today I can drop my shoulders and exhale, unhurried and able to stare out the window of this coffee shop or at the dainty cinnamon swirls in my miel. A long weekend of sunshine and water healed the last of my unsutured wounds. Somehow I’d forgotten what’s needed to grow and how inevitable it is,Continue reading “Surfacing, Or What Letting Go Feels Like”
Category Archives: 2023 Archives
Swimming in Summertime Sadness
I feel sad on the inside of my skin. This line and its associated sensation resurface in me from time to time, never leaving me fully in a state of contentment. Today things feel particularly vulnerable. Workdays and my boss keep me chronically stressed alongside the swell of debt we’re continuously trying to doggy paddleContinue reading “Swimming in Summertime Sadness”
Not So Young
I’m too young for thoughts of grief and advice for processing death, or so I would have thought until I realized several of my close friends have already lost a parent. When I was seeking funeral information for the most recent passing, I came across an obituary for a woman two years younger than me,Continue reading “Not So Young”
The Shortlist to Reset for 2024
Each year in addition to choosing a mantra, I have a quirky habit of flipping through the dictionary and selecting a word at random to be my personal word of the year. This year’s word is ‘shortlist’. While I was relieved it wasn’t something like squalor or redundant, I wasn’t quite sure at first howContinue reading “The Shortlist to Reset for 2024”
Time for Realignment
This time of year holds such promise, forever on the cusp of the fresh start we all so badly crave. We not-so-guiltily savor the final couple days to make mistakes, eat the pizza and sweets, drink the cocktail, skip the sleep and workout, watch one too many episodes. We accept our lack of willpower beforeContinue reading “Time for Realignment”
Energy Begets Energy
For most of my life I’ve taken a morning walk outside, whether it was the stroll to school or an early morning stride session before work. Then over the past couple years I mostly stopped due to nursing my son, sleeping a little extra when possible, and sometimes just a hurried rush into the busynessContinue reading “Energy Begets Energy”
The Real Work of a Marriage
After the blur of a beautiful wedding day, the real work of marriage begins. While I don’t know the nuances of every marriage, it’s fairly safe to say that even if we’ve begun to make the effort to learn from past relationships that we inevitably carry the baggage of all that was left unresolved. ThereContinue reading “The Real Work of a Marriage”
Nothing Gold Can Stay: Savoring Autumn
Early autumn is the golden hour of the year. Warm, ochre light breaks through the trees that offer new openings with each shake of the wind and pools in dappled patches on the yet-soft grass. It’s lovely because it’s a fleeting gift–a pause to harvest the last of summer’s abundance. This is the time ofContinue reading “Nothing Gold Can Stay: Savoring Autumn”
This Home is Not Abandoned
I often dream of houses, my subconscious winding through rooms that represent homes in my life made unfamiliar in the way dreams scramble fiction and reality. It occurred to me recently that this might be because in my waking hours, I find myself using the house as a metaphor for myself. In middle school IContinue reading “This Home is Not Abandoned”
Grit and Pearl: Past Choices through a Both/and Lens
Most of my family is gathering at my parents’ house for Memorial Day weekend, including my youngest brother who’s visiting from New York City. I look forward to seeing him, of course, and hearing his twenty-something adventures amidst the pulse of a city as ever shifting as New York. At the same time, his storiesContinue reading “Grit and Pearl: Past Choices through a Both/and Lens”
Gabrielle Koontz 