Katrina Kenison's Blog, page 21

What's working

It started as I was stepping out of the bathtub the other morning.  I slipped, one leg in, the other out, into a sort of bare-butt split that landed me down hard on the tile floor.  The only real injury I sustained was a badly stubbed middle toe.  But within two hours, the bruise was a brilliant black and purple and it hurt to walk.  I couldn't put on a shoe.  My toe swelled and pulsed, as if my heart was beating inside it.  

Wincing, I made it to my book group that evening, to a meeting the n...

A hand at my back

I walked in off the street, to a yoga class billed as "Sweet Vinyassa."  It's been a week of new places and new faces, from the moment I arrived last Wednesday night on the doorstep of a friend I'd never met in La Canada, California, to this morning, when I found myself asked to bend over backwards and let go.  

 A week after my book came out, an e-mail appeared in my in-box:  "You and I are kindred spirits," it read, "and we would be fast friends if we were to meet."  Fast forward six months ...

Texting, praying

My guess is that if you are reading this, you've probably seen the YouTube video I made a couple of months ago.  There is a line in there that my kids like to tease me about.  Well, there are a few actually.  But the one that I take the most flak for is: "You learn to text, and to pray."  

As my sons often point out, no one makes phone calls anymore.  If I want the instant gratification of communicating with them and getting a response, they've told me, I should text, not call.  But I'm a...

Texting, praying

My guess is that if you are reading this blog, you've probably seen the YouTube video I made a couple of months ago as well.  There is a line in there that my kids like to tease me about.  Well, there are a few actually.  But the one that I take the most flak for is: "You learn to text, and to pray."  As my sons often point out, no body makes phone calls anymore.  If I want the instant gratification of communicating with them, I should text, not call.  But I'm a terrible texter.  Truth is, I ...

Asking for help

Yesterday afternoon, I got a call from a mother in distress.  The woman was a stranger to me, a single mom struggling through tough times with a troubled teenaged son.  My younger son went through his own tough time at age sixteen.  I knew right away how things were for her -- the helplessness, the worry, the anger, the isolation, the sleepless nights.  Of course, it always helps to talk with a person who's already lived through what you're enduring in the moment.  And so, I was glad someone ...

Living the good life

I parked my car on the dirt road, slipped through the handmade twig gate, and followed a winding path through the frozen garden just as the first snowflakes began to fall.  

Thirty years ago, my hosts this morning had two young sons, no money, and a dream. They wanted a good life, a house of their own, a piece of land on which to grow food for their family. 

When I met Bill and Eileen for the first time last summer, I was struck most of all by their joy.  And then by the improbability of their ...

Something is going to happen

When my boys were small we had a favorite winter book called "Something is Going to Happen."  As the family wakes up on a cold winter day, each of them senses that "something is going to happen."  A young child gets dressed in silence, the baby lies still, listening from his crib, the mother and father look at one another knowingly, the dog sniffs the air.  One by one, the family members gather in hushed early morning stillness, and then open the door to gaze out upon the first snow of...

Web of Friends

I thought I "got" the internet.  Need a movie time? Google the theatre.  Want a book? One-click service at amazon.  Can't get the New York Times delivered in rural New Hampshire? Read it on-line. Need to get a message out to the members of your book club?  Send a group e-mail.  Wondering what your college sophomore son is up to tonight?  Check his status on Facebook. 

All of that still seems pretty amazing to me.  My kids can't believe it when I tell them that, in my first job out of college, ...

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I thought I "got" the internet.  Need a movie time? Google the theatre.  Want a book? One-click service at amazon.  Can't get the New York Times delivered in rural New Hampshire? Read it on-line. Need to get a message out to the members of your book club?  Send a group e-mail.  Wondering what your college sophomore son is up to tonight?  Check his status on Facebook. 

All of that still seems pretty amazing to me.  My kids can't believe it when I tell them that, in my first job out of...

Loss, and love

One after the other, my aunt's husband of fifty-nine years and her three grown children spoke -- about what they remembered, what they would miss.  It was bitterly cold in Florida on Saturday, all rain and bluster. My dad had gone to the house early, to staple plastic sheeting around the screened lanai and install a rented space heater to keep the guests warm.  "I want music," my aunt had told my mother some months ago, and so my mom found a singer, and we had "Amazing Grace."  Also at my...