Note: as I’ve been experiencing a lot of “one-year” anniversaries this month, I’ve been writing every morning about each day, re-reading old journal entries and just writing through the thoughts and feelings and experiences of each day. That’s why this is “part 7.” You can find a few over on my Instagram (@katie.j.rose). Thank you […]
Remaining Uprooted
I didn’t expect it to hurt this much: the leaving. the last-time-to-see this or that person. the last drives on intolerably bumpy roads that I’ve taken anyway. the last glimpses of once-green fields beginning to brown under the summer sun. I’ve been watching these fields for years now, through the sowing and growing and flooding […]
Return
To the one who stayed, and now must return, dear friend, dear self, You didn’t want to stay. Everything within you was ready to go. You were ready. Everything but your bags was packed: your heart, your calling, your identity—stowed away in the treasure boxes you found them in at first. Reburied like sand shuffled […]
poppy fields
“We will always stop for beauty, in whatever form it takes. “These arose old memories of how God intended it to be. It is true that we can become accustomed to everything being out of kilter. Children come to believe that parental violence or abusive discipline is normal, but they still have hope for something […]
one year later.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow marks one year since the travel day to end all travel days: the day I began my journey back to this place, wide-eye & expectant, swallowing fast the tears that came in greater waves than I imagined they would, on that first flight to Newark and then again as I watched Inside Out […]
pink eye for the third time.
At first, I laughed. I hurt and I winced, eyes watering with pain—but mostly, I laughed. I laughed because this is the third time in one month that I’ve woken up with pink eye. It seems every time I come back from a group visit—every time I come back like the psalmist seeing the restoration […]