by Cara Strickland I am the last person you might expect to see at a music festival. Although I’m a lover of live music, that love is rivaled by my love of sitting down in climate-controlled spaces. I camp only when there is no other option. My feet get easily tired. My brother called in … Continue reading Love, Loss, and Rock & Roll
by Sunni Brown Wilkinson When the Spanish poet Antonio Machado fled Spain during that country's civil war, he crossed the Pyrenees in an old car with his elderly mother on his lap. The two died only a few days apart. In one of the notebooks he left behind he writes about how, one day when … Continue reading What Have You Done With Your Eyes?
by Jackie Wallace When I was seventeen, I read a book called Paper Towns, by John Green. You may have heard of it due to the upcoming release of its movie adaptation. More on that later. The book tells the story of a teenage boy who idolizes the girl next door. The girl disappears, leading … Continue reading Writer’s Ink: The Light Can Get In
by Sunni Brown Wilkinson The care center smelled on par with all the others I’d ever been in: musty and antiseptic with a passing breeze of mothballs. I’d always found them depressing, but this one at least made very sincere efforts to keep things upbeat, even jazzy. One day, they hired a guy to come … Continue reading Remembered Sounds: “My Sweet Lord”
by T.J. Pancake “Any dog under fifty pounds is a cat, and cats are pointless.” – Ron Swanson It seems that in the world of domesticated animals and owners, there is a hierarchy of sorts. Dogs, clearly, are the—ahem—top dogs, as are their owners who love them and rub their faces, feed them leftovers, and … Continue reading On Cat Ownership
by Karissa Knox Sorrell In his poem “Ode to the Unbroken World, Which is Coming,” Thomas Lux wrote: It must be coming, mustn’t it? Churches and saloons are filled with decent humans. Once I would have thought of those two places as opposites. Churches were where the good people went, and saloons – or bars, … Continue reading On the Advent of an Unbroken World
by Amy Hendricks What makes someone kind? Do they wear fuzzy sweaters and bake chocolate chip cookies all year round? Do they help you move a king-size mattress up to your fifth floor apartment and emerge with a smile on their face? Do they laugh at your stupid jokes at parties? Sure, these things show … Continue reading The Gaze of Kindness
by Doug Sugano In my mind, this post is about a red hoodie. You may disagree, but it’s my post. My wife, Linda, and I have been friends with Jeannie and Tim for nearly thirty-five years (does it seem longer or shorter written out in words or numerically--35?). Many years ago, I was at grad … Continue reading The Motherhood of the Traveling Hoodie
by Leah Silvieus In Xoxocotlán Cemetery tonight, the night before El Día De Los Muertos, life and death sit vigil together: families picnic while setting up shrines for their loved ones, grandmothers hold babies while parents arrange flowers on the headstones. The night is still beneath the nearly full moon, and the air blooms with … Continue reading “The Heart Dies of This Sweetness”: On Endings
by Tania Runyan Last weekend the "if-I-were-to-get-a-tattoo" topic came up again, this time among members of the church worship team, many of whom sport whirling trinitarian symbols on their biceps. "I keep having this conversation," I say, scooting forward in my chair, already feeling younger and edgier for even addressing the subject. "Maybe one of … Continue reading Invisibly Close: Why I Won’t Get a Tattoo
Rock & Sling 