I’m sitting at my kitchen table listening to my kids play outside with a group of kids who are African American, Japanese, Indian, and Mormon. I’m thinking about what happened in Orlando and wondering at what point we all stop riding down a dirt hill screaming and laughing together, and instead decide we all hate each other. Last night, we… View Post

The word “calling” has always bothered me. I suppose it’s because I have a hard time distinguishing between what it is that’s inside me that I should work to bring out, and what it is I feel like doing that day. I love pushing a pen across paper, finding, and waiting for the perfect words to write a story. I… View Post

Day Thirteen. The boys are playing this game where one of them slaps the other, really hard. Like, so hard that I can feel it in my stomach when it happens in my classroom. Then they slap someone else. “It’s a game, Mrs. Feyen,” they tell me, smiling. “What you do is you slap someone, really hard, then that person… View Post

Last Tuesday, when the girls and I got out of the car from school, Hadley said, “Mom! Get over here and look at this tree!” She sounded freaked out and being the nature lover that I’m not, I was already in over-reacting mode when I pivoted and turned back towards what my daughter wanted me to see. The tree looked… View Post

I am standing at the copier when a woman comes in smiling. She’s so friendly and even though I’m not in the mood to talk, I smile and say hello. How’s the writing going, she asks me. I say fine because I don’t want to talk about how my writing is going. It’s going terrible. I am behind on so… View Post