Doors and Windows

Well, we’re in. My back is killing me, my nerves are frayed and here we are with an echo in our new home. We pared down to essentials and it’s bittersweet. It’s refreshing, like a good, overdue haircut and unsettling, like waking up in your bed at someone else’s house. Overall, it’s a blessing. I’m...
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If you study the anatomy of a book, you’ll find its chapters consists largely of suspense, as in, what’s going to happen next? Writers craft words in such a way as to keep that book in your hand so you cannot put it down until the very last word.  I have...
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Having children doesn’t always involve diapers and new mommies don’t always have kids. Sounds like I’m heading into a metaphor, doesn’t it? You got me.  To an empty-nester like me, motherhood is all about birthing books. Of course conception is the most fun. A thought, an idea or a dream...
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They walked with him for three years and each had plans of where it was all going. His many references to a kingdom spurred thoughts of overthrowing the current regime and freeing their people from its tyrannical grip. Several entertained thoughts of position and rank in that kingdom. Others were occupied with the method...
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It was a prominent brick house, almost stately, resting unpretentiously on a manicured corner in a fine Chicago suburban neighborhood. The medical doctor and his wife who once dwelt there raised five children and owned a dachshund named Hilde, though I called it their ‘wiener dog.’ One of the two daughters was my age and...
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Millions of pens have attempted to capture love on paper – that mysterious, elusive bandit that steals our heart, messes with our mind and turns our whole world upside down. Many have written stories of love’s power to overcome the worst its enemy can conjure. Tomes of undying love story pack dusty shelves in...
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We sat on the couch in silence, though anticipation was making quite a ruckus in my heart. Hubby and I had driven three hours to get to our kid’s condo before they returned home from Vietnam with our new grandson, and he was exhausted. Glad that we didn’t have to brave the pre-Christmas crowds at...
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New pictures arrived in my e-mailbox just before Thanksgiving. There were two and the second one grabbed my heart. His face was beaming with a smile that melted me off my seat; his eyes twinkled and for some reason, through that picture he became real to me. Just less than two years of waiting, hoping,...
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Twenty-eight years have disappeared from the day I gave birth to my only child. November is the month I pushed him out into this world and met him face to face. I was a teenager when he was born, unable to comprehend the miracle of his precious life – unwilling to have my self-centered...
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I was on my way home the other day when I noticed an arm dangling out of the trunk of the car in front of me. After a double-take, I chuckled at the mobile Halloween décor. The flapping arm triggered flashes of “body-in-trunk” scenes I’ve seen in movies and it made me think how life...
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