House on the Rock

I was struck this year by the bookends of life. In the past fifteen months, I have watched my mom’s final breaths on this earth while anxiously awaiting my son’s first. I’ve drawn up the… Read more

Of all the lyrics on my 20-hour labor playlist, there’s a line from a Hillary Scott song that rings most resonant in my mind — Sometimes I gotta stop, remember that You’re God and I… Read more

It was a blustery Upland February in 2018. Little college-freshman Cali sat in the padded dorm chair of Bergwall Hall desperate to process everything that had just happened on a life-changing study abroad excursion throughout… Read more

Christmas has come and gone in a whirlwind of candlelight services, peanut butter kiss cookies, and sweet together time as a family. While it was technically our second Christmas without Mom, in some ways it… Read more

Mom,I can’t believe this week marks one year since you went home.I still resist the desperate urge to call you on the phone.Except we both know I’d never actually call,because you hated phone calls more… Read more

It was another tight-lipped election day in the land of the free and home of the brave. “I Voted” stickers littered lobbies like confetti while we longed for the day to be over already. We… Read more

Ever since I first started trying to write consistently, there’s been a trend: almost zero words are produced from the end of September to the end of October. It’s never a deliberate decision, just a… Read more

Disclaimer: this is an adapted version of a previous blog post written on my no-longer-active former site. It is a wimpy attempt at the “new era of blogging, baby.” Sorry if you’ve read it already… Read more