Magical Memoir Moments
Two Wedding Blessings for Our Daughter and Her Husband
Yesterday our only daughter became a bride and wife. Today is Mother’s Day. Need I tell you that my heart was full this morning, even before Stuart placed a handwritten card and a cup of Starbucks coffee on the bedstand and even before the last event of the wedding–brunch with the two families and the wedding…
Around the World in 80 Days: Reflections on Recent Travels
Pittsburgh: Saturday morning. Post-Starbucks and pre-wedding planning day with Kate and Nik, Anthony and Chelsea, Ila and Neal.In a mellow, grateful, Thanksgiving Weekend mood. It occurred to me, as I was returning from my third trip to NYC last week, that perhaps I have been around the world (24, 901 miles) in the last 80…
So How ’bout that Toast?: A Mini-Memoir
Our son Anthony and our new daughter-in-law Chelsea were married September 12 at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Manhattan. It’s time to share more of the story that has been unfolding here since they announced their engagement. I described the synchronicity in their meeting–their origin story involving Forrest Church and Match.com here. And…
Memoir Poems: A New Family Tradition
The wedding countdown is on! Anthony and Chelsea not only have their own website, like many couples these days, but both of them are bloggers. Anthony uses his blog mostly as a “digital home” for networking in social media, although he announced his engagement there, including the playlist of music and the menu.He also loves…
The Harvest Time of Life: A Mini-Memoir
Last Sunday, Stuart and I celebrated the last day of August with one of our many bike rides in the hill/woods/lake country here in southwestern Michigan. We have enjoyed watching the grape vines become green, then produce fruit, and soon we will get to observe the harvest. Next Tuesday another sign of the season arrives–all…
Nostalgia: How Important to the Memoir Writer? Reader?
One of my colleagues, Deb Higgins, sent around an email that has evidently gone viral. It depicts lots of items remembered only by Baby Boomers and their elders. I used the skate key picture from that email as an illustration for Lanie Tankard’s guest blog on Touchstones. But I thought you might like to see…
Touchstones: Keys to a Great Memoir
Guest blogger Lanie Tankard returns today to talk about memories of her childhood using “luminous particulars”-a phrase borrowed from Jane Kenyon and Ezra Pound via my former colleague at Goshen College Ann Hostetler. Lanie’s word for those wonderfully evocative objects is “touchstones.” If you enjoy this beautiful essay, you may want to read her first…
Beautiful Sentences Contest Winners: Toujours Bon Appetit!
The poet Keats, at the age of twenty-four, penned these immortal words, ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’ I thought of them often as readers and I struggled with how to evaluate the many different kinds of sentences entered into the contest to find…
Love and Death: Forrest Church's Testimony and a Mini-Memoir
Forrest Church’s voice rings in my head today. I finished his memoir last night, and many of his themes are ones deeply embedded in my own life. His 2008 book, Love & Death: My Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow, published by Beacon Press, focuses on the two big ideas of the title, especially…