MEANINGMAKER

meaning

  • all the days we did not live

    I decided to walk to work this morning. Unusual for me in the winter. On my way, I happened to see an unhoused woman curled up on the cold sidewalk on the other side of the street, surrounded by the… Continue reading

  • heaven is a campfire

    I like to thinkthat before any of us had bodieswe sat around a campfirein heaven,leaning into its warmthletting the light touch our faces,our knees tucked up to our chests.The flames crackledlike tiny miracles,sending up sparksas if the stars were being… Continue reading

  • definition

    Woke /wohk/(adjective.) The moment a person stands uprightin the full measure of their seeing.As in what Pope Leo said:To be called woke in a world that sleepsthrough sufferingis no insult. Or,the strange conditionin which noticing the worldis treated as more… Continue reading

  • a mirror in minneapolis

    Two liveswhose names readlike promisesthe world failed to keep:Good. Pretti. What a bitter sermontheir deaths preach:That goodness is no armour,that beauty is not spared,that loving your peoplewill cost your life.A dark gospelspelled out in their bloodon the streets of Minneapolis.… Continue reading

  • lift what you can

    My mother taught me  to shovel snow the way I imagine some mothers teach prayer – patient, shoulder to shoulder. She’d come home from a long day, and say: Come on, let’s go. Out into the dark we went, into… Continue reading

  • new year’s eve 1975

    She slipped the deep blue coat from the hanger. The fur collar brushed her cheek, a brief vanishing softness. I watched from my doorway, a child awake when I shouldn’t have been, drawn by the thin slice of light —… Continue reading

  • a small good thing

    Last night, just before I fell asleep with my Airpods still in, I listened to a short TED Talk about what it means to keep on creating in a world that feels like it’s on fire. Every one of us… Continue reading

  • at the threshold

    A lone mourning dove took up residence on our front doorstep this morning. She’s calm as a guest who knows she’s expected, though she wasn’t. A round little thing, soft-bellied and unbothered, as if she’s just content to be content… Continue reading

  • a gift in the cold

    Can we just talk about how the rain froze on the windshield this morning for a minute? Like a tiny murmuration of starlings – that breathtaking, swirling ballet you sometimes see those delicate birds perform by the hundreds in the… Continue reading

  • we are so lightly here

    Today, my phone’s photo app offered me a montage it called Looking Back. I usually ignore those compilations, but this morning I opened it as the downtown blurred past outside the train’s window, on my way to work. There, among… Continue reading