Tag: army wives
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Noon
“Hawaii is my happy place,” I said to no one, ever, at any time. The morning was too bright, too hot, and too lonely. But the light’s beginning to change. Happiness, like a cockroach, has a way of creeping up on you.
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Do I Have Anything in My Teeth?
Reason #1,457 I need my husband to come home: he would never let me leave a sandwich shop with basil in my teeth. When Tim first visited me in Seattle, I dragged him around the city because I wanted him to fall in love with it like I had. Pike Place Market was at the top…
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Last First Kiss
Eight years ago this week, Tim kissed me for the first time. It was a risk for us both: I asked him to be my date. He drove across two states. It could have been the most awkward weekend of our lives. He didn’t know my friend who was getting married. He didn’t know my parents,…
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Splinter
Jacob ran out the front screen door, exclaiming, “Christmas wreath!” in his two-year-old toddlerese. It was early December in Hawaii and the wreath I had picked up at the local Target was our lone Christmas decoration. With a deployed husband, two small children, and an upcoming holiday trip to my parents’ house on the mainland,…
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The Miracle of (im)Perfect Timing
Two kids under two was never part of my plan. My husband, whose sister is a mere 14 months his senior, assured me having kids close together would be not only good planning (get those hard years out of the way) but also a good investment in their friendship (he counts his sister and her…
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Waiting For My Missing Piece
The lizard was tiny and speckled brown, and it ran across the carpet of the new master bedroom as Jake and I played on the floor. Excited to show my toddler a creature he’d never met before, I pointed to it. “Look, Jakey! A little gecko!” With the speed and curiosity inherent to boys of his…
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You Can Do This
Friends, here’s the truth: Life has been HARD recently. Hard hard hard hard. Hard. Not necessarily tragic or traumatic or full of drama – just HARD. You ever have one of those seasons? When it just feels like you can’t catch your breath or catch a break? We are in the middle of one of…
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Friendship For All Seasons
I walked through the chilly evening dark and got into the car without a diaper bag. I turned on music that I like – which at this point is anything that’s not songs from Sesame Street – and I headed out to visit a friend and watch The Bachelor. As the pregnant mom of a…
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Sabbatical (or, how this all came to be)
Sabbatical or a sabbatical (from Latin sabbaticus, from Greek sabbatikos, from Hebrew shabbat, i.e., Sabbath, literally a “ceasing”) is a rest from work, or a hiatus, often lasting from two months to a year. The concept of sabbatical has a source in shmita, described several places in the Bible (Leviticus 25, for example, where there…
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Through a child’s eyes
The other night I attended a potluck barbecue hosted by my new friend, Jess. It was one of those perfect Pacific Northwest summer evenings when the blue fades to gold and the air takes on a shimmer that seems to promise the season will never end. Jess was the loveliest, most gracious hostess and spent…
Erin Curlett 