Having wrestled anxiety for most of my young adult life, I don’t often go plumbing the depths of my psyche too much anymore. I may be emotionally and psychologically healthy these days, but I’m far from immune to causing myself anguish. Doubt is an inevitable part of the human experience. We doubt God, we doubt…
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How Do You Power Down Your Brain?
I’ve said before that I’m obsessed with sleep. This is because i don’t get enough of it, though not for lack of trying. I go to bed at 9:30, I take naps during the day when it gets bad…but I don’t sleep well. In these latter days, I can blame it on kids (last night’s…
Read MoreWhat If?
I think it started the day I hurt my knee. I wasn’t doing anything to deserve injury. I was just coming around the corner to go upstairs after a voice lesson when my left knee popped and went out from under me. For six weeks, doctor and PT notwithstanding, it hasn’t been right. In combination…
Read MoreThe Value of Singletasking
I’m a multitasker. Shocking, I know. But it’s true. I’m a make-lunch-while-feeding-baby, scribble-notes-in-grocery-store-checkout-line, do-spiritual-reading-while-nursing, scrapbook-while-watching-TV kind of girl. A girl after Martha’s own heart. Not that I don’t appreciate Mary. I want to be Mary. I crave silence and stillness, yet I always begrudge the time. And the logistics of making it happen keep getting…
Read MoreCome To Jesus (or: what happened in the wake of a Mommy meltdown)
No one likes having to confess that they lost their cool in front of their kids. It’s a tossup deciding which is worse: the experience itself, or having to admit it where others will hear about it. It’s been three weeks since my bad week–the week in which I lost it (twice), and life looks…
Read MoreMaking Peace With My Birthday
For most of my life, my birthday and I have had a pretty dysfunctional relationship. It’s not about age–I’m seeing the first hints of the aging process taking its toll, and I don’t like that, but psychologically speaking, I think this whole obsession with youth is ridiculous. No, it’s about the day itself: the purpose…
Read MoreThe Beauty of Light and Dark
There’s a quote I think of often, from a movie that never hit the big time, but which has really stuck with me over the years: Grand Canyon. “Everything seems so close together,” the character Claire tells her husband. “All the good and bad things in the world. I feel it in myself, even. And…
Read MoreWhat I Learned About High School After Twenty Years
It was quite a weekend. On Saturday I found out two of my articles had won awards, the scales tipped at pre-pregnancy weight, and we went to my twenty-year high school reunion. I’ve been anticipating this event ever since Christian’s reunion last fall. And several years before that, actually. But as the time grew close,…
Read MoreWe Are Not Rugged Individualists
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a piece of fiction called “Makeover.” It’s about a woman whose life is a mess–grown son dead, marriage in shambles. When she sees her reflection in a storefront, she realizes she doesn’t recognize herself anymore–and she goes to do something about it. The most thought-provoking comment I received…
Read MoreCore
“Mommy, that boy called me stupid.” I shaded my eyes against the yellow heat of the sinking sun and saw Alex, his big brown eyes simultaneously wide and droopy, pressed against chain link as if trying to squeeze through the backstop and draw comfort from me. I hitched Michael up onto my hip and got…
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Kathleen M. Basi 