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TRUST

When I was a little, bitty girl my Grandma Helen would prop me on a pillow on the front of her saddle and off we’d go. She rode a fast moving Tennessee Walking horse named Reno and in those days, Reno took my grandma and me over the mountains and through the woods and never did it dawn on me we might have been in danger. Grandma trusted Reno, and I trusted Grandma, and our rides brimmed over with joy and enthusiasm.I think back on these horse rides with Grandma as I mow the lawn with Cruz in my lap. […]

By Paula September 26, 2012

Those Who Mourn

I was eleven when he died, the blond boy with braces who had a crush on me in the third grade, the only boy fast enough to catch me on the playground. He was twelve that summer, the star pitcher on his Little League team in the middle of playoffs when his mom crashed their Bronco on a country road killing them both on the way to his baseball game.The mom wasn’t your average mom. She roped cattle with manicured hands, spun men’s heads when she stepped into a room, wrapped bright scarves around her auburn hair, and was so […]

By Paula September 18, 2012

A MOUNTAIN ROAD

I have this reoccurring dream: I am five-years-old in a car with a drunk man driving. The car is swerving up a mountain road. There is nothing I can do. Terror eats me alive, but never stops eating because I never die in this dream or get rescued from the vehicle. The car won’t stop. It’s traveling for the long haul and nothing can interfere with the driver, my fate is in his hands, and he is bent on his destination. I have no idea what that destination is. I am merely a child along for the ride, screaming on […]

By Paula September 12, 2012

BOYS TO MEN

Neither of my grandfathers graduated high school. My dad’s dad, Grandpa John, didn’t make it past the sixth grade. Grandpa Jack (my mom’s dad) attended high school for a year, then ended up farming for a living before the age most boys today get their driver’s license. Hard times of the Great Depression bred hard men, but my grandfathers with their leather-like hands, underneath all their gruffness, harbored tender hearts. Neither lived to see their great grandsons, though one of our boys has his great grandfather’s bright blue eyes. This blue-eyed grandfather lost his mother and several siblings in the […]

By Paula September 5, 2012

LIBERATED WOMEN

It was 1970 something. In a packed pizza parlor with a country band playing, the little red-haired girl walked up to a bearded singer and requested the song: Put Another Log on the Fire by Waylon Jennings. The bearded singer broke into a smile, broke into that song, and all the women in that pizza parlor broke into a collective, “NO!” as men clapped and cheered.“Put another log on the firecook me up some bacon and some beansand go out to the car and change the tirewash my socks and sew my old blue jeans.Come on baby you can fill my […]

By Paula August 30, 2012

The Answer for Sadness

Today dawned early, too early with Cruz wailing from his crib, his arms thrown wide for me. He’s teething right now so grumpy baby on my hip, I stumbled to the kitchen for Cruz’s milk and my coffee, then out to the yard to release our barking dogs (don’t know why the dogs woke this morning all riled up, too), and back to my prayer chair where Cruz sipped his milk and I drank in my coffee and devotions as the sun came up. Streams in the Desert is a devotion I’ve done for years. I love this daily reading complied […]

By Paula August 27, 2012

TRAVELING PANTS

This morning, I put on my favorite old jeans. I have several pairs of favorite old jeans, but these are really old and really favorite. Historic, actually. I say ‘historic’ because they hold threads of my life history, reminding me of times with people and places and pets I love and have loved.It’s been years since I’ve worn these jeans because the behind ripped out riding my horse one day and they became unwearable.Just a few weeks ago, I found them tucked away on the top shelf of my closet. You should just throw them away, went through my mind, but instead, […]

By Paula August 21, 2012