Today I stood in a room about the size of outhouse, trying to decide by what miracle I might turn it into an office. Wait. I’ll start at the start. Long ago, when I was 7, I had a revelation. It was simple: I liked to be with people. Some more than others. But at times, I just wanted to be alone. [Read more…]

Who gets to make the rules for birthdays? And why has no one ever told me what they are?

Birthdays are like the people who have them: No two are the same. Each of us ought to get to make our own rules for how to celebrate another year of life.

That’s what I told my mother and my grandmother the day I turned 7, and came home from school to announce I’d invited my whole class to a party. They squinched up their eyes as if I’d said Jesus was coming back to take me to heaven and leaving both of them behind. [Read more…]

It’s a gift to bear witness to a miracle, to believe in a child’s future and watch it unfold. Even if you drive five hours and sit in the nosebleed seats to watch it.

I love basketball. I was a player once, for about 30 seconds. It was eighth grade, my rookie debut. I deflected a pass with my nose. After that, I became a scorekeeper. Years later, I married a high school coach and kept score for his games, until I had babies. Then I became just a fan. The babies cut their teeth on the bleachers and sat in players’ laps on the bus to away games. (Laps were legal child safety restraints back then.) All three grew up playing the game, and all three still are fans. [Read more…]

What’s your favorite expression _ an epitaph, maybe, to chisel on your tombstone?

Growing up in the South, I was steeped in “Southernisms.” I can hardly talk without them:
“I’m grinnin’ like a mule eatin’ briars”; “She’s busy as a cow’s tail in a fly swarm”; “He’s dumb as a fist fight in an outhouse”; “I’m so blue I want to crawl up under the porch with the dogs”; and a personal favorite, “I wish you could’ve seen it.”

Recently I heard a phrase I’d never heard before. It’s perfect for summing up some of the finest women I’ve ever known, including many in my family _ my grandmothers, my mother, my daughter and daughters-in-law. I’d be proud to have it said of me, as well, but I’ll leave that to you to be the judge. [Read more…]

I was standing at the sink peeling shrimp for dinner (and thinking how I like to eat shrimp more than I like to peel them) when I had a revelation.

It hit hard, like a punch in the gut. I heard myself whisper: “This had better be good.”

Not the shrimp. The shrimp would be fine. Even I can’t make good shrimp taste bad. What prompted the whisper was a realization that I needed to write a column. Again. And I wanted to make it a good one. [Read more…]

Dear Good Kind People,

A very long time ago, it was my great fortune to become forever friends with Shari Hastey. We met through church and often worked together setting up, or cleaning up after, various events from women’s retreats to Young Life meetings to feeding hordes of hungry teenagers in our homes. Once, we actually dressed in band uniforms and hot pants and sang “Mr. Sandman” to some teachers at Monterey High School. I don’t remember why.

About the same time I began writing a column, Shari began fulfilling a dream called Community Partnership for Youth _ a fabulous grassroots program serving the needs of underprivileged children and teenagers on the Monterey Peninsula. If you’re not familiar with CPY check them out at www.cpy.org.

To celebrate the remarkable 25th anniversary of their founding, CPY is hosting a luncheon on Thursday, February 4, 11:30 AM at the top of the Monterey (Calif.) Marriott, in the Ferrante Bay View Room (hands down, the best view in town). Pam Dozier, an old buddy from the Herald days, will emcee. It’s going to be quite a wing-ding. [Read more…]

To all my “stranger friends” who have written hundreds of emails and comments and letters and cards encouraging (or in some cases, ordering) me to find some way to continue writing my column, I want to say: THANK YOU! You are wonderful! You are the best stranger friends in the whole world! Please know that I am hip-deep in the process of working on self-syndication (argh! don’t even ask) and hope to be back with you soon. The next time I find myself hunched over a computer, working on a column, I will blame YOU! And I will love you for it. You truly are the best.

As ever,

Sharon

How do you say goodbye to a friend you’ve never met?

Twenty-five years ago, when my editor called me into his office, I knew I was in trouble.

“Sorry I left early yesterday,” I said. “I’ll never do it again. After today. I have to sell hot dogs at my son’s baseball game.”

He rolled his eyes. “I want you to start writing a column.”

“About what?”

“Life,” he said. [Read more…]

There he was, wrestling Christmas lights like they were alligators. He’d been itching to put those things up for weeks.

Some people seem to feel the Christmas spirit year-round. I like those people a lot. But for me, it’s hard to feel that spirit until Christmas finds me. I never know when it will happen. Only that it will. It seems doubtful, at times, but I keep hoping. And sooner or later, like magic, there it is.

Faith dims, but hope persists, singing of spring in a frozen heart like a redbird in the snow. [Read more…]

I call them the Boys. Technically, they’re not boys. But there’s nothing technical about losing your heart.

Oliver and Archie are my daughter’s dogs. She’s had them since they were pups. In dog years, they’re old, or as I say if asked my age: Old enough.

They are highly excitable, fiercely protective and entirely devoted to my daughter, her husband and their 4-year-old, Henry. But their personalities couldn’t be more different. [Read more…]