In one of her books, Madeline L’Engle recounted a story she had heard: “Someone tells me of a story of a bishop who lost his wife and child in a tragic accident.  And he said to his people, ‘I have been all the way to the bottom.  And it is solid.'” I too have found that to be true—for the most part. Like Flannery O’Connor once wrote, “I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.”

 

Word keeper, mother, observer, sacred eavesdropper, close-reader, wounded healer, beauty-finder, skeptic, and trying to put all that into words. Lover of libraries, crepuscular rays, murmurations, etymology, flowers and dachshunds in sweaters; the scents of lavender, coffee, and books. An anglophile whose favorite writing accoutrements are a cup of PG Tips and digestives with dark chocolate.

Published Works

DEAR AUDREY 

After my 33-year-old husband, a well-known rock cellist, drowned in Lake Geneva, Switzerland while touring with singer Regina Spektor, I found myself searching for meaning in the intersection of fresh widowhood and young motherhood. I documented both at Dear Audrey.

The Story

Dear Audrey,Tonight something happened that I didn't think would happen for a few years.When I was putting you to bed, you were anxious and upset like most nights.  Then you told me you were crying because appa died.  This is not the first time.  You...

Jewelry Tells A Story

You used to always complain (jokingly) that I wanted jewelry, and I would try to explain that it didn't have to be anything fancy and that it wasn't about the item as much as the story behind it.  When I look at my jewelry, I think, "There's the necklace you gave...

Lost

I'm really becoming more immobilized by the day.   I hope it's just a rough patch.  My analogy of the day- since these images seem to leap out at me...a stone mortar and pestle...I feel ground up...like I can't get any smaller. I keep thinking about all of...

Trap Door

These past few days it's like I've fallen into a trap door on this stage where I get up every day and act the role of the widow. It's caught me off guard.But suddenly it's as if all of the supposed "strength" I've been mustering for eight months to get through each...

This Week

 On Monday of this week I finally made it to the orthopedist.  I was upset to see the night before as I was filling out the patient history forms I'd printed from their website that it asked for the disease history of your spouse and if they were deceased,...

Photographs

You look flatter, less life-like and 3D lately in the photographs I have everywhere around the apartment.  I pick them up and stare closely because I'm surprised by this recent change. You are a photograph. A friend suggests to me the other day, "Maybe heaven or...

Logistics of an After World

The whole new heavens and new earth has become increasingly important to me again lately.  It was in the beginning when I obsessed over whether or not Dan was alright.  Then the counselor says, I turned to myself and my own personal sorrow because of his...

Eight Months

Eight months today.I didn't make it out of my pajamas.It poured most of the day, and it still is.  I can hear the wind actually howling and beating against the windows in my bedroom. I'm glad for pathetic fallacy.I keep asking myself a question lately- if I'd go...

Eleven Years

Today a new and terrible thought occurred to me- seems that always happens in this "predicament."  I realized that in just nine years, Audrey will have known me longer than you did.  And that if we both live to when we're "supposed to," she may know me for...

Is This How It All Ends?

There was a night, early in our marriage, when we both thought we were going to die.We lived on the top floor of a brownstone in Brooklyn, but there was no separation between our apartment and the rest of the home- owned by one wealthy family.  The apartment was...

Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.

Frederick Buechner

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