“Tell me a story,” my son has started to say after reading his bedtime books. The first time he made the request, I looked at him as I don’t do often enough, seeing the soft cheeks and hands already changing so fast for his three years, blue eyes looking at me with trust more complete…

My daughter asked me to bring some food to the swim meet when I came. I said, “Maybe.” She rolled her eyes, and grumbled as if I never do anything for her, though I’d just supplied the ride she needed to participate in her event. She was still mad that I had looked through her…

The current issue of Image (#96) features a profile of innovative theater director Karin Coonrod, whose projects range from Shakespeare and medieval mystery plays to adaptations of Flannery O’Connor. Her latest play, now running in New York, is an adaptation of the classic Isak Dinesen short story “Babette’s Feast” (famous for the 1987 film version),…

This is the time of year when I anxiously wait for flowers to reappear. Our valley’s famous tulip fields that are now in full bloom, the show-stopping roses by the front door, and the dramatic yet fleeting peonies that outline our garden beds. We also have a hydrangea outside the living room window and I…

When the email came in from my editor, I wasn’t sure how to answer. What do you want to do next? After years—a decade, really—of what felt like pushing a boulder up a mountain, sitting down every night to write no matter if my family was watching a movie or there was ice cream being…

I love American Idol and could hardly wait until this spring when the show was revived after a two-year hiatus. I’d watched it all through the previous seasons: those judged by Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell, and Randy Jackson; those when Kara DioGuardi stepped in; the stints of Steven Tyler, Mariah Carey, and Nicki Minaj; the reigns of…

Leaving work the other evening—a cold, blustery twilight that belied the spring it’s supposed to be—I drove down D.C.’s North Capitol Street and passed the usual crowds that give the neighborhood its shady reputation. Things are “trending” in these parts—new restaurants have arrived and townhouses are being renovated—but you still have a lot of people…

I love this poem because it mirrors the passing of time, patiently guiding readers through the speaker’s perspectives on truth. The structure of the poem resembles a list, providing four metaphors for how truth moves in the world. The poem’s relationship with truth is a relationship characterized by time and movement. Even before we reach…

My daughter Anna Maria was born on Orthodox Easter Sunday—Pascha—in 2009. That year, the date fell on April 19. While her brother had blasted his way into the world at the very bottom of the night, in a delivery that was swift and surreal and unmedicated, my daughter arrived in the late afternoon as the…

First seder, Passover 5778. Esther recalls climbing Mt. Pisgah in the early ’80s. She was in her fifties. Visiting her daughter and son-in-law at the time and first grandchild. What did I know about climbing a mountain? she says. I was from Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn. We were walking behind some other hikers, women older than…