For a long time, the sun rose and set in my husband. Now I chase the light at the water's edge, and I have learned the difference between an idol and a God.
Author: Laura Joy Palma
Enough, Without the Fireworks
Three years ago I wrote that I was enough without the fireworks, and hoped it was true. This year, by the river, I found I could hold both the rare light and the daily one.
New Every Morning: 30 Days of Chasing the Light
Thirty mornings at one pier on the York River, and the sky never repeated once. What thirty sunrises taught me about mercy that's new every morning.
The Same Shorelines
A year ago, my husband renewed our vows at sunrise. This week, separating belongings, I found the card he'd given me that day. So much can change in a year.
Two-Hour Tuesdays
Two-Hour Tuesdays is here. The blog that became a book, and the practice that's teaching me how to write the next one — a chapter at a time, at the water.
Perception Changes
I spent this week fixing a photograph. The cover came back too dark, and the fix wasn't more light, it was raising the shadows until the buried detail came back up. I've been thinking about that ever since, because it's the truest thing I know right now.
The Sun Rises and Sets on an Author
There is a white wicker loveseat on the sand. It does not belong there… and neither do I, quite, living in three pasts at once through three books. A sunrise spot visited at sunset, and the quiet realization that I've been so busy surviving — and so busy writing about God — that I forgot I was made to delight in Him.
Firsts After the Lasts
This was a week of firsts — the kind I've come to know by heart this season. Working through every first after what I hadn't known would be lasts. The knife I reached for was packed. So I reached for my own, the one I had before him. What you put in the ground is never what comes back up.
Memories, Anchors, and Prisons
The sunrise is supposed to be the opposite of the prison. Then Sunday morning, he was there. Tonight, I begin the part of trauma therapy that's supposed to help me leave the room I'm still trapped in.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Frost wrote eight lines about gold and grief, and I've been teaching them every year. This week, I learned what he didn't say: the gold was real. It just doesn't stay.