Corey’s Blog
Thresholds and Chicken Wings
It’s a strange thing to read your own memoirs, even when you are the one who wrote them. Last Friday, I ironically finished my final
Eagle Totems and Early Morning Imaginings
Several weeks ago, a friend was sharing about a book she’d been reading and describing the gorgeous cover in great detail: the layered mountains, the
Gray Grief
What do you do with grief that feels gray? Which compartment do you stuff it in when it’s not black, suffocating, agonizing, blaring, or concrete?
Falling into the Collective Whole
I never knew it was possible To fall in so love with every tree, each leaf, the way they quiver individually and yet collectively…the sound
Becoming the Books We Read
I cannot remember the books I’ve eaten more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me. ―Ralph Waldo Emerson We are
Darkness: My Teacher, My Friend
It’s been a year and a half since we moved to the mountains. Fairly quickly, my husband and I fell into an easy rhythm. We
Life in the Woods
In my morning reading, Thomas Merton expresses my heart in a way that far surpasses my own ability: “I can only desire this absurd business
My “Heartbreaking, Soul-Healing, Amazing, Awful, Ordinary Life”
A well-known author once said the worst reason to write a book is to save yourself. Maybe she’s right. But in hindsight, that’s why I
Soul Soreness
I recorded my second podcast yesterday with two delightful kindred spirits, and today, I surprisingly awoke with a sore soul. Like the day after a
Un-Autistic Feeling Autism
Grayson, my Autistic seventeen-year-old son, has been home from boarding school this week getting his wisdom teeth removed. He doesn’t very speak often of his
Plant Lessons
*This blog has been written by a guest writer, who, despite my most earnest cajoling, remained firm in their desire to remain anonymous. Please feel
Beautiful but Not Pretty
I’ve always wondered how it is that one can feel beautiful, but not pretty. The word occurs to me in a different way as I’m
The Interconnectedness of Grief and Aliveness
I sat in my car yesterday morning, mindlessly staring out my window at the elementary school playground and waiting for my daughter to emerge from
To REspond or DEspond? That is the Question.
Several years ago, it occurred to me that I was living a life I did not wish to be living. I was stressed, angry, and
Guts and Poop and Gray Hair…Oh My!
Every day I pick up the kids from school, I pass a massive carcass decomposing along the side of the road. Maybe a cow or
Heaven Stooped Low
“We fail to understand the Divine, not because we aren’t able to extend our concepts far enough, but because we don’t know how to begin
Ordered Chaos
*Disclaimer and warning: Do not read if you are easily offended. There is nothing admirable in the words that follow. My parenting skills are abhorrently
The Chains That Bind Us
July 23, 2022 – Part 1: Regarding Fear Yesterday, Arin and I spent an hour-and-a-half hiking up and down the grassy knolls of our new
The Sinewy Connections of Life, Death, Longing, and Fear
July 5, 2022 I am mid-stride in the kitchen when the darkness hits. Without warning, it rolls in as quickly as the afternoon thunderstorms, although
Freedom by Fungus
July 3, 2022 “Your Aspens look diseased,” my mom offhandedly remarks from the breakfast table overlooking one of our many new-to-us Aspen groves. “You could
I Went to the Woods
July 2, 2022 My eyes flicker open to the dark outline of a mountain, and I blink repeatedly, willing the looming shape to disappear, yet
Donning the Sacred Faded Polo
Here is Grayson, my sixteen-year-old autistic son, on his second day of work. No, he’s not the kid sitting on the stool with the blurred
Death at a Gas Station
Like scattered toys, the firetrucks and ambulances were parked willy-nilly as if dropped from the hand of a careless child. We maneuvered our car in
Extra Ordinary?
I had a dream last night—more of a nightmare, really. I was auditioning to be an actor in my own book, the memoir I’m attempting
Broken Ribs, Homeless Boys, Police, and Self-Doubt
Monday, my dad slipped on the unsalted ice at our house and broke four ribs. Tuesday evening, my husband and I were winding down in
Old Uncle Willie and the Need to Feel Normal When Nothing is Normal
“In our society, where two-legged, two-armed strong Black men were able at best to eke out only the necessities of life, Uncle Willie, with his
Prayerful Musings
Here—a thought and prayer about brokenness and our need for healing—and there—a thought about what color feels right to paint our future house. If we
Huge Little Victories
Friday, we left for the mountains to celebrate Grayson’s thirteenth birthday. Pulling away from the house, celebrating was the furthest thing from my mind, as
Another Day: “Sailed On”
It is said that around the time that Christopher Columbus set sail, the English pirate Drake was raking Spanish holdings up the west side of
Why I Need to Remember This Moment…
Because I constantly get phone calls from school telling me he tried to stab a teacher with a pencil or attempted to cut himself with
A Summer Tornado
The end of summer feels a bit like wandering through the aftermath of a natural disaster. Mentally moving from room to room, I assess all
The Destabilizing Power of a Sack Lunch
I packed a sack lunch for my oldest son today. I literally can’t even remember the last lunch I packed for him. But today was
Shattered Wheat
My dad told me this once. For a wheat seed to come fully into its own, it must become wholly undone. The shell must break
Common But Not Normal
A study was conducted in 1967 by a man named Martin Seligman. In Part 1 of this study, three groups of dogs were placed in
Nothing New this New Year
I’m sitting by the fire in my pajamas at 11:00 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. Everyone is either sleeping or gone. A tinge of wistful
I’m Outside Alone. Again.
Lately, a few unanswered questions have been rolling around in my head, flaring whenever I sit down to write. They’re as persistent and loud as
“Ugly” Beauty
When my daughter was young, we visited a women’s monastery where a nun was tending to the chickens. By all cultural standards, the young woman
Christmas Humility Comes Early
A fourteen-hour glimpse into the holidays with an autistic child: Wednesday December 21, 2016: 3:00 p.m.—Grayson gets into
Walden Pond
“I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted without being aware that we