Magical Memoir Moments
Were Every Stalk on Earth a Quill: Hymn Singing As Transcendence
Did you grow up singing hymns in church? For me, almost nothing stirs my soul like a hymn, especially those sung in four parts with other singers who are listening carefully to each other. This love of music started early in my life. I wrote about learning to sing a cappella music in my memoir…
Pets From My Childhood: A Memoir in Pictures
One of the best parts of growing up on a farm is that people and animals interact in ways different from those in cities or suburbs. They can share space while maintaining freedom. Animals don’t have to live like humans in order to be enjoyed by and to enjoy humans. Not that that’s a bad…
A Lancaster County Wedding: Celebration of Faith, Family, Friendship, and Farming
Our niece Valerie, the youngest of my mother’s grandchildren, married her sweetheart Nate yesterday. The whole family labored for months to restore an old mill to a usable space, mow the grass, pump out the overflow from the creek, pick the flowers for centerpieces, put up and take down chairs, tent, and then get dressed…
Meadow Tea: A Memoir Story You Can Really Drink In
One of my favorite summer time chores was gathering mint for Mother. My brother and I would take a bucket and two sharp knives and walk into the meadow, following the creek, past the weeping willow trees, to the bank where the mint grew in profusion. When we heard the Tetley Tea commercial on the…
57 Varieties of Wisdom: Sooner or Later, We All Quote Our Mothers (and Fathers)
As I intimated in my last post, the response to my Facebook query asking for examples of sayings from parents was amazing. Fifty-seven responses in all, counting multiple entries and conversations about entries. Then my Facebook friend Linda Hoye posted a Mary Englebreit painting featuring these words: “Sooner or Later, We All Quote Our Mothers.”…
Give Me a Few Minutes, and I'll Get You Started With Memoir
That creative and persistent daughter of mine, Kate, keeps challenging me to do new things. We were looking at the result of the survey we sent to the people who have signed up (right hand side above) for my e-booklet and weekly emails. They told us that they want to write their stories but that…
My Mother's Magic Rainbow Story: A Lifelong Influence
I spent last weekend with my 84-year-old mother, who made her first trip from Pennsylvania to Virginia in many years, thanks to her escorts–my sister Doris, her husband Dave, and their standard poodle Rodney. We celebrated Mother’s Day live and in person, albeit a week late. Yesterday I posted two wonderful Mother’s Day tributes found on other…
You Can Go Home Again–A Mini-Memoir
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, likes to call itself the Garden Spot of the World. If you travel to Lancaster in the springtime, you understand. The greens penetrate deeper than the human eye can see, and the earth, well, it’s as soft and receptive as any coquette and more fertile than a hutch full of rabbits. I…
My Stroke of Insight: A Spiritual Memoir
I will cut to the chase on the last night of the year 2008. I loved this book. I read it nearly in one sitting, fascinated by the straightforward telling of an incredible story. Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist working at the Brain Bank at Harvard University, woke up one morning with a headache…
- « Previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- Next »