Turning Jealousy Into Inspiration
Sometimes I forget to breathe. Which is embarrassing because I know better. I know I don’t have to remember to breathe—my body will that for me. But still…I feel like I forget a lot. You know what I mean, right? There are those moments I realize my breath is shallow …
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Clapping in Joy
In March 2021 my family said goodbye to one helluva good man. His name was Clyde, and he was the first potato farmer I ever met. He was like this awesome combination of the Marlboro Man, Mr. Miyagi, and Jimmy Stewart. The high school kids who picked potatoes for him …
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How I Learned to Love My Linebacker
I’m not a big fan of football. And yet…. I’m obsessed with the series Friday Night Lights. I’d watched it float by my Netflix windows and kept dismissing it as “so not me…” Ick. Ptew. Blech. I mean, come on Netflix…how you could possibly think I’d like that, you fool! …
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A Letter To Myself in 2019: Of Course You’re A Racist
Hey there. It’s me, Lael. I’m writing to you from December 2020 to prime the pump for where you’ll be headed in the next year. This is the letter I wish someone had given me a year ago. I think it might have helped on all those dark nights of …
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Daily Post 11.26.20—Truly Grateful for a Non-Holiday
I have struggled with the celebration of Thanksgiving my whole life. When I was young, I couldn’t understand why I felt the way I felt. I just did. To me, the holiday always felt wildly inappropriate. In another generation, I wonder if a little girl might have felt similarly at …
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Daily Verse 11.19.20—No More Cruise Control
I feel unusually strong about not using the cruise control function while driving a car, and it’s a big bone of contention in our family. I don’t get it and no one gets me. I get the logic and the rationale behind it—how it is more fuel-efficient and ensures you’re …
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Daily Verse 11.17.20—Always Do Your Best Is Bullshit
I caught myself in a whopper of a lie to my kids not too long ago, and it resulted in me taking a good dose of my own medicine. In our house, we talk a lot about not “mailing it in” when it comes to showing up to our responsibilities …
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Daily Verse 11.16.20—Tired Technology
I’ve decided I’m going to stop trying to understand what’s going on with technology, and let it just sort itself out. Hacking, malware, upgrades, bugs, fixes, hardware, software, modems, chargers, cables, battery power, memory problems, glitches, dropped signals….it’s just all so exhausting. And yet there is the pervasive sense we …
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Daily Verse 11.15.20—Things I Didn’t Know
It’s true what they say, I think, about the longer you live, the more you realize you don’t know. I wouldn’t have believed that in my 20s. But then again, I thought I knew everything back then. There is a certain humility that comes with age that I have found …
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Daily Verse 11.10.20—Alone, But Not Lonely
I have this practice of taking myself away two or three times a year. My intention is always the same: to remove all the distractions of my familiar space, enough so I can hear the quiet, deep, and true voice that lives inside me. Why? Because ironically, it’s only when …
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