This is my symphony

Make like a hobbit

Laurie Larson

March 30, 2024

It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life.
J.R.R. Tolkien

My morning pour-over, the cat on my lap, and a peek of the sunrise over the field out back. Teaching my grandson how to play Scrabble, bending into a stretch at the YMCA, a stack of books waiting. That, my friends, is magic.

Except we’ve been sold a different bill of goods, haven’t we? One that entails a well-stamped passport. A showcase home. Winter in sunny climes. Drawing on years of savings for that comfortable retirement.

Don’t get me wrong. That’s exactly where I thought I was headed. But those dreams went *poof* up in smoke. So what’s a girl to do when she ends up taking a path that left her miles from where she was headed?

She summons her inner Hobbit, that’s what she does. She chased after the Ring, lost a few battles, and had nothing left in her but to head back to Bag End. And that’s where the magic begins: the coffee, the cat, the books.

Mind you, I’m not a Tolkien reader. I fumbled my way through The Hobbit; I watched Peter Jackson’s Fellowship of the Rings, just barely. Because, really? How many goblins and wargs and dwarves and dark lords does one need? I delighted in The Hobbit when Bilbo was tucked in Bag End with its paneled hallways and coat pegs and round green door and tea for elevenses. But you start creeping around in mines and staging thirty minute battle scenes and I’m off to load the dishwasher and start a load of laundry. Ain’t nobody got time for that.*

When Bilbo, after all his adventuring, settles in to write his book, he realizes “… where our hearts truly lie is in peace and quiet and good tilled earth. For all Hobbits share a love of all things that grow. And yes, no doubt to others, our ways seem quaint. But today of all days, it is brought home to me it is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life.”

And simple though its been, the past couple weeks have been just the magic my soul needed. I finished my time at the museum, facilitating sessions in the fur trade for third-graders. I’ve got a new roof over my head–literally. After winter snows left a couple shingles on my deck, I knew it was time to replace the twenty-five-year-old roof–a noisy, messy process if there ever was one. I had a day to love on my sick granddaughter when day care was out of the question and then a week later join her on a field trip when mom had jury duty. This year I even fought through my aversion to bible studies and attended a Lenten book discussion at the Catholic Information Center, finding to my surprise that I loved being part of a group that tackled some hard questions about faith and community. And after watching You Are What You Eat on Netflix, I’m making my way towards eating “plant forward,” which, after fifty years of cooking, is helping me climb out of my cooking rut.

I ticked another one off my TBR list: Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club by J. Ryan Stradl. In fact it was this novel that got me thinking again about what happens when we find ourselves off track. Mariel and Ned Prager thought they knew where they were heading–a life centered around food and family. Mariel had her grandma’s supper club to anchor her, and Ned was heir apparent to his family’s step-up-from-fast-food restaurant chain. But tragedy derails them, and they spend years trying to correct course. Stradl has the Midwest ethos right down to the olives and cheese spread on the relish tray. This is the third book of his I’ve read, and it might be my favorite. (The Lager Queen of Minnesota is a close second.) As a Midwesterner of almost seven decades, the work ethic, church ladies, and family dysfunction he writes about ring true. And while Stradl pokes fun at our Midwestern weaknesses, he does so gently, with a sort of admiration for the values that make us who we are.

I know it for certain, dear Reader: there is magic in the most ordinary of things.

* For Tolkien fans everywhere: be gentle! I know you are legion, but I decided early on in my struggle to read his books that I would take what I like and leave the rest.

Three things my mother taught me

Laurie Larson

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February 12, 2024

In Psalm 31, the psalmist praises a mother of noble character–a woman who was virtuous, strong, and selfless. This is my opportunity to rise up and call our mother blessed, to (as it says in the psalm) honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise.

Mom’s life taught me these three things:

Home is where the heart is

Mom worked full time outside the home most of our lives: in a law office, a university library, an insurance office, a doctor’s practice. She was behind the scenes, running other people’s businesses smoothly and efficiently, but her heart was always at home.

We moved every year when I was young and within a couple days Mom had our house unpacked, everything in its place–our bedrooms and the kitchen always taking precedence. She canned peaches and tomatoes and pickles and jam. Jeff and I grew up with homemade cookies in the cookie jar and a homemade pie or kuchen on the counter every Saturday.

Raised in poverty, Mom’s own home was evidence of God’s unending provision and great love for her. Mom loved weekend visitors–especially family from Ohio–and company dinners. She opened her door for bible study and visiting missionaries and holiday dinners.

Mom took God’s call to show hospitality very seriously, and I’ve no doubt she entertained ‘angels unaware’.

It’s a wonderful life.

If you’re ever tempted to hang back and sit on life’s sidelines, remember my mom.

God took a poor Cleveland girl and showed her the wonder of His world: France, the Netherlands, Spain, Mexico, Panama. Her beloved Yosemite. St. Croix to visit my cousin Connie. Mom’s bus trips took her and friend Sue to Mt. St. Helens, the Rockies, New England, Alaska. To celebrate turning 60, Mom took a hot air balloon ride. A skate dancer in her teens, Mom was 83 the last time she went roller skating. Mom married my step dad Gene in her sixties and loved him to the end.

Life dealt her many setbacks, but she was never defeated–in part because of her indomitable spirit, but in whole because of her faith.

Cast your love deep and wide

A measure of my mom’s love is all of you–just look around. Really look around. I see dear friends. Work colleagues. Parishioners. Gene’s union buddies. Volunteers from Emmanuel Hospice. Neighbors. Step-children. Beloved grandchildren. Great-grandchildren. Mom never missed an opportunity to chat up a bank teller or a grocery store cashier–something that drove me crazy when I was younger–and she never met a stranger she didn’t love. Jeff and I probably disappointed her many times, but we always knew that in her eyes we were loved. “Jesus loves you and so do I” was her signature sign off on her voicemail, and she meant it with every fiber of her being.

Mom taught us never to be stingy when it comes to love. To reach out to help others even when–or perhaps especially when–lonely or sad or tired. To see the best in everyone.

“Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.” We will miss you, Mom, but wait with faith to meet you again.

You might notice that this post sounds like a eulogy. Indeed, it was supposed to be. I wrote it the week before Mom died, after asking her permission to speak at the funeral. Two days before the service, the pastor called to tell me that the church council wouldn’t allow me to speak–even after the funeral liturgy–because it “wasn’t done” at Messiah Lutheran. Let’s just say it was an impersonal funeral that lacked even a hint of comfort for me.

This year as I anticipated the second anniversary of her death, I figured better late than never. So this one’s for you, Mom, from the bottom of my heart.

Leaning into the turn

Laurie Larson

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February 10, 2024

Last month we had one of those Midwest snow storms that closes schools, interrupts travel, and keeps many of us shoveling every few hours to keep up with the drifts. It is only my second winter living alone, and let’s just say I’ve never been more happy to have the companionship of a little fur baby than I was in January. My go-tos for staying connected to others–the YMCA, grand kids, and dinner with friends–were impossible to access. For a day or two I rode the wave of excitement that these storms often stir up. I baked. I decluttered. I shoveled with enthusiasm. I read.

And then I was over it. So over it. I spent more time than was healthy surfing the internet. Even though I had declared a spending freeze for January, Amazon became my best friend. I watched hours–and hours–of Ken Burns on PBS. I even searched for airline tickets to someplace warm in February before sky-high ticket prices dissuaded me. (I did, however, reserve an Air B&B in Florida next February!)

When city plows had finally made at least one pass on major thoroughfares, I braved icy snow-covered roads for swim class at the Y. As I rounded a corner onto an unplowed side street, I found myself leaning in the direction I turned–much like I’d do if I was riding a bicycle. And later, as I sat at a stoplight, I saw other drivers doing the same. We were all leaning into the turn.

I’ve learned a lot about adversity in the past several years. I lived with a loved one’s addiction and the financial fallout of that addiction; I honed my Spidey senses to recognize when a mental health crisis was imminent. I cared for my mother in the months before she died. And although it was painful, although I wouldn’t willingly choose the difficult situations, I learned through years of therapy and “doing the work”, as they say, that I alone was responsible for my happiness. I accepted that there were things I couldn’t change, and I began to develop the courage to change what I could. Fighting against my circumstances did nothing but create distress. Only by leaning into them would I be at ease.

And while a winter storm is a far cry from death and divorce, I realized that weathering this storm would be much easier if I didn’t resist the isolation. Or, for that matter, the cold and the shoveling and the temptation to worry about the massive icicles that hung from my roof.

I needed to lean into the turn life had (however briefly) taken. Despite being shut in, when was I happiest? In those first two days when I didn’t fight it. When I putzed around the house. Enjoyed extra time to read. Snuggled the fur baby who has so brightened my life.

And sure enough, two weeks later, the snow has melted. I’ve shed my heaviest winter coat for a lighter one. The sun decided to reappear. And robins and bluebirds have returned to my yard. My discontent changed not. one. thing.

Just as the snow was melting, I finished Amor Towles’s novel The Lincoln Highway and talk about leaning into the turn? Emmett Watson and his younger brother Billy are poster boys for taking things as they come. Emmett, newly released from a work farm, arrives home after serving his time to find his the farm sold and his eight-year-old brother packed and ready to set out towards a new and better future. (No worries about Emmett’s character. He is at the reformatory because after a fist fight to defend his father’s name, Emmett’s antagonist dies. He might have a temper, but there’s not a mean bone in Emmett’s body.) Emmett plans to settle in Texas and start a construction business. Billy, however, has other plans. After their father dies, Billy finds postcards from the mother who left them years earlier and uses them to map out the route she took after leaving–and figure out her whereabouts. But their best laid plans are upended when Emmett finds two of his work farm buddies, Duchess and Woolly, gone AWOL and hiding in his barn. And so begins a wild ride across the country from Nebraska to New York–sometimes by train, sometimes by automobile–where the boys experience set backs and betrayal, as well as miracles and remarkable serendipity. Like many odysseys the escapades they take part in are so far-fetched it strains credulity. But this is one tall tale that works.

So if you find yourself in a funk when life twists and turns, don’t fight it. Just lean into the turn.

(After writing this post, I realized how many novels I’ve read that center around road trips. Try The Widows Adventures, for one. And The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet for another.)

Take a seat

Laurie Larson

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December 19, 2023

In many ways it’s been a typical holiday season: decadent food, festive gatherings, cozy nights. Friend Mary and I took in our town’s new Christkindl Market and it didn’t disappoint. Although it’s only a sliver of the size of Christkindl Market on Daley Plaza in Chicago, the folksy wares, yummy food, and–of course–gluhwein were spot on. I attended my grandchildren’s Christmas program and offered a kids’ craft table at our parish’s annual celebration of the Feast of St. Andrew. Of course the house is merry and bright with holiday cheer and I’m actually baking this year, something I haven’t done in nearly a decade. My best gift came early: a one-year-old kitty named Dory.

Not that I live a greeting card kind of life by any means. I spent Thanksgiving cooking for one and will for Christmas, as well. I miss my mom every. single. day. Distance–some geographical, some relational–separates me from much-loved family. Grief over the loss of my marriage has become an almost comfortable companion. And the worry of aging alone keeps me up at night now and then.

I read recently about the idea of glimmers. Triggers, off course, have become part of our modern vernacular. We understand that some experiences stir up feelings associated with past trauma, often moving us back into our fight-flight-freeze responses. Glimmers, on the other hand, are those cues which remind us of feelings of safety and calm. So that gluhwein? The Christmas pageant? Baking cookies? All glimmers taking my nervous system back to a time when life was less complicated, more certain.

Last night I watched Patrick Stewart’s A Christmas Carol and was reminded, once again, that we have some agency in what manifests in our lives. When Scrooge attends Fezziwig’s Christmas party with the Ghost of Christmas Past, Scrooge hears his mentor say to his younger self, “Ebineezer, when happiness shows up, always give it a comfortable seat.” Simply put, we are more than our suffering. I have come to recognize the many glimmers that lighten my day–if only I open the door, pull out a chair, and invite happiness to take a seat.

Of course it should come as no surprise that some of my most satisfying glimmers come as I read. In fact, I’ve got a nice little TBR pile waiting for Christmas week reading. Friend Denice lent me Thanksgiving by Ellen Cooney and it will become a yearly read for me, as it is for her–although I’ve got to get my hands on a copy. The story begins with a young married woman in seventeenth century New England named Patience. Her husband’s actions while hunting for a turkey set in motion the stories of succeeding generations, finally ending in this century. Each chapter is named after an element of the Thanksgiving table (dishware, tablecloth, pie, turkey) and centers on one woman in the family: her challenges and trials, her hopes and dreams. But it is just as much the house’s story as it is the women’s, and we are brought along as it is updated and added on to, as land is sold off and people move in and out of the family and the house. When compared to my own experience–many houses, distant family–the novel has the sweet taste of a fairy tale.

This holiday day season can be a tough time, no doubt about it. But whatever weighs us down lightens when we recognize the glimmers that show up. And when they do, grab Happiness by the hand, show her your most comfortable seat, and ask her to sit and stay for a spell.

This little bunny returns from the stage after the angels announce the Good News to woodland creatures

I did a thing

Laurie Larson

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November 11, 2023

Last weekend I bought my first power tool. (Not counting a Black & Decker drill driver which, lets face it everyone uses.) To some this may raise much alarm. I am the stuff family legend is made of for slicing and dicing myself on any number of household items: graters, scissors, razor blades, mandolins, a lawnmower, even. So what business have I, you might ask, purchasing such a tool given my not-so-stellar safety record?

Welp. I’ve begun to discover that sometimes family legend is just another way of telling ourselves stories that keep us stuck, stories that limit us rather than allow us to expand. And I’m the queen at limiting myself. I don’t have a green thumb. I don’t garden. I don’t paint. I don’t do yard work.

And every. single. one. of those I don’ts are now I do’s and quite successful ones if I do say so myself. My house has more than a few plants scattered around after decades of telling myself I can’t. Herbs and tomatoes now line my freezer in neat little containers, and next year the raspberries I planted last fall will be producing as well. I’ve primed and painted most of the original stained floor and window trim on the first floor. And slowly, but surely, I am re-imagining my backyard–including a rock border for which I’ve scavenged and carried each and every rock.

When I painted that floor trim, I had to switch out the fifty-year-old heat registers and cold air returns. And wouldn’t you know–the new cold air return grills are about 3/8″ too large to fit between the already installed molding. So last year I propped them up against the wall and hoped against hope they wouldn’t fall over. (They did.) I meant to find a handyman to trim the trim, but I am also a first-class procrastinator.

Until I’m not.

I figured if I can measure fabric and lay out a pattern and stitch any number of items–tote bags, aprons, dolls, clothes–how hard can it be to saw off 3/8″? (Yes, I know there’s that business of power tools, but what is a sewing machine if not a sort of power tool?!) Thanks to YouTube I learned I needed an oscillating tool. Like some sort of handyman magic it vibrates a small saw-tooth blade and voila! cuts through trim. Does my work look professional? Nope. In fact, I believe I might have installed the wrong type of vent cover. But I’m okay with that, because the pride I feel is more important to me than finding fault.

And what’s more, I’ll learn.

A very fine house

Laurie Larson

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October 30, 2023

[My] house is a very, very, very fine house–with two cats in the yard–life used to be so hard.
Graham Nash

Here’s a trope for you: an elderly woman–alone, of course–refuses to leave her home. She resists any number of pleas that it’s “for the best” to move somewhere safe, where she can get the care she needs. The roof needs shingling and the steps are crumbling. Hazy windows haven’t been washed in years; the garage gutter hangs crooked. (Do I even need to mention that there might be a cat or two involved?) The old woman’s bank account is almost as spare as her cupboard, but she is adamant: I. won’t. go.

I suspect that might very well be me someday.

I watched my mother turn over the idea of senior living, taking only one step forward before she took two steps back and decided she couldn’t leave the condo she’d lived in for over twenty-five years. The home where Sunday dinner was celebrated with chicken paprikas and cherry pie and jello salad, of course. And holidays, each with their own centerpiece and tablecloth on the dining room table. Gift bags and tissue paper spilling over the living room floor, be it birthday or Christmas. Flash back to the busyness of my young nieces visiting for the weekend from Ohio, then fast forward to her great-grandchildren inheriting the toy basket. The home where we celebrated her marriage to my step-dad was the same place she said goodbye to him before the funeral home carried him away. She recovered there, twice, from breast cancer, until that same funeral home carried her away, too.

I’ve written about home on these pages before. Two-hundred and twenty six times, if my blog’s search feature is accurate. My love affair with houses makes sense for a girl who moved sixteen times before she was forty. But right now I’m on a streak: twenty-five years in one place. I’ve sacrificed dearly to stay in this patchwork of partly-remodeled-half-repaired-falling-apart house, but despite the flaws I feel safe within its walls. Grounded. So many good memories were seeded here. Graduation parties, high school dances, wedding celebrations, three dogs and four cats, a gender reveal, grand-babies toddling, Christmas parties, summer barbecues. But there are ghosts, as well. These walls have also seen betrayal and estrangement and dreams shattered.

You’d think all that sorrow would cast a pall on my attachment.

But no. It’s simply home. My home.

It should be no surprise that I’m a sucker for a good book which has a home at its heart, and two have touched me recently. Kate Morton’s latest novel Homecoming is a sprawling story covering fifty years, several families, and more secrets than I could count. Two family homes loom large. Jess Turner leaves London to tend to her dying grandmother Nora in Australia. Jess, estranged from her mother Polly, was raised by Nora, doted upon and loved unconditionally. But Nora’s dying words set Jess on a quest to uncover a dark family secret–and in true Morton fashion, the secrets reveal themselves like a Russian nesting doll, one inside another inside another. She learns of a murder, an affair, a missing child, and lost love. Like so many of us, Polly and Jess are drawn to the very same house where tragedy changed the course of their lives. Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark was another recent read that centered on home. (And secrets, too, come to think of it.) Children’s author Agnes Lee has spent nearly eighty summers on Fellowship Point in Maine. The land was owned jointly by her uncles, and each family’s home calls children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews back year after year. Those uncles are gone now, and one of the cousins wants to develop the property, breaking up what has held them together for generations. The novel is a reflection on why we hold so tightly to our origin stories and asks us that we consider to whom land really belongs. And if that’s not enough of a recommendation, the blurb says the novel “reads like a class nineteenth-century novel …” and the nearly six-hundred pages attest to that.

I know I’m not going anywhere soon. (And if I had my druthers I’d make that never.) But for now I’ll just add a cat or two, admire my shelf full of books, bask in the lamplight, and raise a glass of bourbon come evening. To my house. My very, very, very fine house.

I think I can I think I can

Laurie Larson

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June 12, 2023

The first time I heard the story of the Little Engine That Could was on Captain Kangaroo. (How’s that for dating myself?!) Captain read that picture book often on his show, and 4-year-old me loved the illustrations as much as the story. Earlier this month, my oldest son Peter and I took a road trip out west to visit my son Andy and his family in Montana–and over the trip I had many opportunities to channel my inner Little Engine.

It was a Grand Adventure, Friend.

The trip out saw us going through the U.P. to Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota. There were miles and miles of empty roads and swarms of no-see-ums. We ate at the Beary Patch diner in the U.P. and were served by a made-for-TV grumpy diner waitress. There was the giant Hiawatha statue in Ironwood. We climbed Enger Tower in Duluth. Stopped for a visit with Paul Bunyan and Babe in Bemidji. And we ate breakfast at Perkins, an old standby in the Midwest. Along the road, we saw eagles and coyote and porcupines, oh my!

I was tired, dear Reader. The driving took its toll and muscles that I didn’t even know I had ached. My eyes itched (it was cottonwood season, after all) and I was bleary-eyed. It must be an age thing, considering I know who Captain Kangaroo is, but oof, I wasn’t expecting such exhaustion. I … think … I … can …

But then we spent a day in the wonder that is Teddy Roosevelt National Park and all that fatigue melted away. Years ago I read Mornings on Horseback and on this visit to TRNP (I’d been there briefly twenty-three years ago) I felt as though I, too, was exploring the wild countryside with Teddy. Bison herds trotted up over the road and just a few hundred feet away wild horses stood watch. We loved the prairie dog’s antics and walked the short Wind Canyon trail. Every turn of each twisty road revealed another majestic view.

We stayed with my son Andy and his family in Livingston, Montana for a few days where I always feel embraced by Andy and his wife Erica who welcome me despite the upset to their daily lives. The five of us road tripped to Yellowstone together for a long day of mud-pots and geysers and pools and waterfalls–and bison, of course! It was a joy to share it with my granddaughter Luna. In fact, on our return trip, she and her dad caravaned east with us to visit Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse and Devil’s Tower before turning back for a daddy-daughter camping trip of their own. It was good to spend time with my adult kids and a relief to learn we could all let the little irritations of travel slide because our time together was precious.

After Andy and Luna left, Peter and I faced the long slog across South Dakota towards home, still three days away. In Rapid City, my car, a ten-year-old Subaru Forester, began making a clipping noise intermittently. The car drove fine–no warning lights, odd smell, or smoke. I’d had it inspected and serviced several weeks before we left, so I wasn’t worried. But when we stopped at Wall Drug, I called a Subaru dealer in Sioux Falls and begged for an appointment the next morning just to see if it was travel worthy.

I didn’t make it.

Or rather, the car didn’t make it. Only half a mile from our exit to the hotel, the oil light flashed on, the engine cut out, and I pulled over to the shoulder on busy I-90. Dead. My son checked the oil–nuthin’. Fast forward to a kind state trooper, an accommodating tow company, and a night spent tossing and turning before a cab ride to the dealer where they gave me the news: RIP, little Suby. I guess my little Forester thought she could … but she couldn’t. There were some tears and to say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement. But what I’ll remember most were the miracles.

Like the fact that we crossed three hundred miles of range land with nary a town in sight–and broke down within sight of our Sioux Falls exit. (Can you say “angels”?) Like the fact that the trooper advised we cancel our AAA tow and use a local tow company because AAA was likely a few hours wait. (True–the local guy got to us within an hour.) Like the fact that every. single. person who heard about our situation, from the service department to the tow dispatch to the hotel front desk was sympathetic, kind, and tried their very best to reassure me. And that dealership? They offered options, didn’t pressure me, and just happened to have the make and model of the car I had pegged as my next car when the time came.

I guess the time came sooner than I expected because I drove home in that new-to-me car.

A Facebook friend commented on a post about my travel disaster, something to the effect that, I had “passed a very important trust exercise.” And of course my first snarky thought was, “I’ve had enough trust exercises over the past ten years, thankyouverymuch. I’m done.”

But really, I’m not. Because I was reminded last week–in a big way–that I get to choose. I get to choose if I rage or scream or laugh or cry when life turns upside down. I get to choose to believe the Universe is out to get me or angels are hovering. I get to choose whether to give up or go on.

And I think I can.

World’s largest Hiawatha statue: Ironwood, MI

A breath of fresh air

Laurie Larson

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May 26, 2023

Every spring Midwesterners swear that summer will never arrive. Then one night after weeks of cloudy, windy damp-cold we go to bed, and wake up the next morning to a balmy 70 degrees, a bright blue sky, and trees leafed out.

It’s glorious.

Last week I took out the trailer for the first time; Friend Mary set up her tent behind me. And, oh my goodness, it was a beautiful few days in the woods. We hiked. We sat in the sun and soaked up the goodness we had waited for since maybe mid-October. It was even warm enough to soak our toes in Lake Hamlin. Except for uncooperative campfire wood and Mary’s cold, the trip was picture perfect. I had plenty of sit-and-stare time to feed my soul.

And twenty-four hours after I got home, the kids came over for Mother’s Day Sunday dinner. The company was delightful, but I just can’t help but feel that my cooking days are waning. I don’t even know how that happened–I used to be a good cook!–except it might have something to do with the fact that I’ve been cooking and cleaning up after for over fifty years. God bless my working mom for teaching me early, but–oof!–I just might have run out of steam. (When I was twelve, I would start dinner prep after school; Mom finished things up when she got home at 5.) It is decidedly un-grandmotherly of me, though, and I can’t reconcile my feelings with my apron-wearing-steamy kitchen-china teacups fantasy.

I missed my mom this year, of course, our second Mother’s Day without her. I’m walking much more steadily through my grief than I was last year, that’s for certain. I planted a pretty geranium on her grave and wore her beloved charm bracelet to church. She wouldn’t have had me any other place. (If you know my mom, you know!)

I finished May at the Lowell Historical Museum with first and second-graders: it’s field trip time in Michigan! Lowell is a community rich in history, and the schools and museum have an incredible partnership. If you had told me that seven and eight-year-olds would be excited about the fur trade and lumbering and milk men and shell buttons I wouldn’t have believed you. But it’s true. Not a single one of the kids in my groups weren’t incredibly curious and bubbling with questions. (And, truth be told, the occasional “Can I tell you something about my brother?”)

My perennial beds look amazing, and Little Mitten Landscape’s clean-up last year was worth every penny. Lesly cleared and ripped out and mulched–and this year I had a blank slate to work with. I’m really intent on attracting pollinators, and have been working hard transplanting and dividing and mulching. My herbs overwintered nicely, so with the warm weather, I’ve already been able to freeze my first container of herb mix. And a neighbor had some rhubarb divides that I snapped up. That won’t be ready for a couple years, but yummy goodness is on its way. Add some tomatoes in the raised bed and a beautiful row of raspberries along the back of the garage and I feel like I’ve got a little homestead. Crazy, I know, but until last year I told myself the story that I couldn’t grow things.

Last week I devoured The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Dare. It. was. amazing. One of those books that is devastatingly beautiful. And even despite the violence and adject poverty, uplifting. Adunni, a young Nigerian woman, is married off at fourteen because her father needs the bride price money. Shattered because she had always dreamed of returning to school to become a teacher, Adunni flees her husband’s house after tragedy strikes. Unwittingly she is tricked into becoming a housemaid in Lagos for a wealthy businesswoman who beats and berates her. I know, I know. How can I say the novel is beautiful and uplifting? Mainly, it’s Adunni. She is strong, yet tender; ambitious and open-hearted. She wants that “louding voice” so badly, the reader has no doubt she will prevail.

I spoke today with a lovely friend who–like Adunni–has had her own share of tragedy. And you know what? She, like so many of us, is finding hope in the midst of struggle. Because, by the grace of God, that’s what strong women do. We prevail.

Cracked Open

Laurie Larson

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April 27, 2023

This past month my heart has been full.

Which is a pretty audacious thing to say considering the past several years. Maybe it’s the darn Midwest optimist in me. But I doubt it. Try instead a whole lot of mindfulness, heaps of prayer, and a shit ton of healing.

I know first hand how years of conflict and isolation can take it out of a gal. My world contracted, but it wasn’t until I willed myself to peek over the edge to realize just how small it had become. Classes at the YMCA have given me an energy I haven’t felt in ages–and, truth be told, some pretty sore muscles. Spring is bustin’ out all over, and I can’t seem to get enough of the peeper chorus and birdsong. The grand Littles are growing into fine people. Friend Mary and I found a couple gems in a Vintage Parlor Orchestra concert at a local brewery and an art and architecture trip to Detroit. A Meijer Garden lecture on Midwest gardening for pollinators sent me into a planning frenzy for my yard. (My task today was finding rocks in the field behind my house and throwing them over the fence to start a rock border. Thank you, chest presses!)

Of course there are some bumps. I’ve set aside the travel plans I once had, and that was a doozy of a loss to reckon with. But I’ve found so many treasures lately, how can I possibly complain? Sure, it can be uncomfortable to hear friends talk of far flung adventures, but I come back to the peace I’ve found. The stability. I wouldn’t trade that for a trip around the moon.

This week I settled into Louise Penny’s A Great Reckoning, and it might be my favorite Gamache mystery yet. (Except I used to say that every year about my Christmas trees, too: “I think this is the best Christmas tree ever!”) Armand Gamache is a rock of a man: principled and dedicated to truth, yet willing to acknowledge his frailties. Despite his keen mind, he never lords it over anyone. And I swear I’d move tomorrow if I could find Three Pines on the map. But oh my goodness, I want to sip bourbon by the fire with a licorice pipe (did you know you can order them online?!) and breakfast on croissants and cafe au lait at the cafe and sit in the church under the ~~rose~~ compass window and visit Myrna’s bookstore. It’s just so. darn. comfy.

I love that at the end of a Three Pines novel, loose ends are tied up so neatly. Life isn’t like that, is it? People die and leave us with unanswered questions. People leave, and we struggle to make sense of it all.

“Things are strongest where they’re broken,” Gamache says in a commencement address at the end of Reckoning. He has seen friends and enemies–real and imagined–brought to their breaking point. Some grow stronger; others don’t make it out alive. I’ve thought a lot lately about being broken, of a heart hurt so deeply it seems impossible to put it back together. Leonard Cohen’s Anthem plays in my mind: “Forget your perfect offering/there is a crack in everything/that’s how the light gets in.”

And, sure, the light does get in. If only we let it.

But I’ve also come to know that being broken is how the light gets out–that when our hearts crack open we become the person God always meant us to be. If only we are willing.

Fisher Building mosaic: Detroit, Michigan

Color my world

Laurie Larson

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March 29, 2023

It’s been a dreary winter, but that’s finally behind us: the crocus are up–purple, white, and yellow–and my mini daffodils, budding. The red wing blackbirds have been back at the feeder for a couple weeks. Robins are singing. And the past month has seen more sunshine than the whole of January.

My world, too, is brightening. I dreaded the approaching anniversary of my mom’s death, but when the day came, I felt a weight lift. I’m no longer caught off-guard by tears, nor do I dwell on the last months of her life. (I understand now the logic of the Victorians yearlong mourning period.) Nor do I linger overmuch on the end of my marriage. It’s as if my spirit gave up a deep sigh after this last year’s losses.

It’s no exaggeration to say that there have been more delights than I can count since the year began. Personal training. A new class at the Y. Coffee with a new friend, lunch with another. Tea with a neighbor. A season ticket to Broadway Grand Rapids next year. There’s a two-week trip out West in the works and camping galore this summer. I’ve even got a writing group or two in my future. I’ve reclaimed so much of what I lost in the past decade’s chaos, and it’s rare that a day goes by that I don’t feel as though my life is rich and fulfilling.

And I added some amazing colors in my kitchen because it only seems right that my outer world reflects the inner. The painters were a little dubious at my choices–“We usually paint neutrals”–but they were good sports, and I told them, “I live in a girl house now and if lipstick (their name for the cerise shade) makes me happy, lipstick it will be.” Add some newly stitched cloth napkins in bright patterns and a wool-looped hot-pad and there’s no. way. I’m giving darkness a place at my table. Not any more.

It’s been a good month for books, that’s for sure. Book club read We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza, and it’s a perfect choice for discussion: friendship, marriage, racial bias, and police brutality all wrapped up in one title. Hard questions. A friend mentioned her book club was reading Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby and it proved a good companion read, of sorts, to We Are Not Like Them. A gay couple is murdered and their ex-con dads set out to avenge the death. (I do admit I skipped over much of the shooting and punching and knifing, though.) I picked up an older Anita Shreve novel that I had somehow missed, Light On Snow and it was a tender coming of age story about grief and growing-up without a mother. Friend Denice loaned me The Littlest Library by Poppy Alexander, a chick lit book I could agree to: English countryside, library-in-a-phone-box, and love found at last. I’ve got one more novel left on my current TBR pile, and then I’ll need to do some restocking.

Life is good, am I right?