Margaret’s Musings – Growing Life
Of Babies, Boxwood and Bamboo
Three weeks ago our first grandchild surprised us by coming into the world a month early, welcome Asher Scott! Countless friends have told us, “Being a grandparent is the most treasured time in life.” So many in fact, that we began to doubt this itty bitty...
Believing in New Shoots
Something new is springing up; we're moving to a new state, getting to know a new town, rooting into a new community and while it's exciting there is a bittersweetness. We've spent 29 years walking these creaky, oak floors and sharing one shower upstairs, boiling...
Thankful? Our New Life – Six Months Later
“Adults get homesick…longing for familiar places and spaces.”
A Mother’s Day Letter to our Children (on the eve of losing their childhood home)
Dear kids, Sorry, but we are packing boxes and probably annoying you with photos of random pieces of art accompanied by, “Do you want this?” May 24th is coming and then we’ll stop. We bought our little french cottage in February of 1991 and when we took your...
Letters to My Mother During CoVid19
March 26th, 2020 Dear Mom, As I mentioned in my first letter, I’m truly sorry that I can’t come and visit you. They’ve locked family members out of your retirement facility and are only allowing outside paid caregivers to come in and be with you. Since this change...
Healing Blossoms in Winter
Last weekend I fell on the ice twice. Who didn’t? Despite my trusty Bearpaw boots, the thick layer of fresh powder disguised the ice rink beneath. Slam…Ouch! Move all limbs, check for broken bones, breathe a sigh of relief. I’m walking, but currently find myself holed...
“It All Goes Back in the Box” for a New Adventure
John Ortberg tells this story of playing a board game with his grandma and at the end of the game she waxes poetically about this truth, "It all goes back in the box."* As our kids returned to their respective post- holiday lives, we sat amidst piles of dry pine...
Almost Spring!
Looking out my classroom window at the greying hues found in the seamless connection between the sidewalk and the cloudy sky, I hear the birds making an announcement. Despite this week's official arrival, Spring has been working its way up from the ground since...
Planting Baby Bulbs in Winter
Every year it is the same ritual: buy tons of on sale flower bulbs in November, run out of time before the ground freezes, stick them in the refrigerator hoping the ground will thaw, strain eyes while planting bulbs in the January dusk, pray they come up in April....
Graduating Baby Corn Plants
Like millions of others, our youngest child graduated from high school this month. “Millions have done it before you and millions will do it after you,” my husband was told when he signed up for the Barbri course to prepare for the bar exam. There is something...
We’re All Spring Ephemerals
While walking my yorkie-poo this morning I spot these early harbingers. Tufting out of the last fall's rotting leaves a sunshine nugget shoots forth, one blossom so tiny you could miss it. After looking right then left, I reach down beneath my big toe and pick one. A...
Fostering, A New Life and Love
She’s never been to Starbucks. Never stayed in a hotel. Never heard a bedtime story and now she’s living with us. Our new year began on Janurary 2nd. We drove a quiet 11 year old girl from Boston to our home, arriving at 2:00 a.m. to be greeted by welcome notes and...
New Ivy in San Antonio
Amidst a cluster of sunbaked, red brick buildings, new shoots of lime green ivy are emerging. Unremarkable and common, of the English Hedera helix variety, it is reaching out beneath a Texas live oak tree on the campus of Trinity University. As I walk up the Laurie...