Author: Sharon

  • Oasis

    Oasis

    Almost every early morning finds me breakfasting on our sixth-floor balcony porch, come clouds or sun, rain or shine, hot or cold. It is open air yet provides enough shelter to protect from rain, unless the wind is blowing from the north or east, a rarity. In the almost two…

  • When we come to the end of the road

    When we come to the end of the road

    Disruption, chaos, brutality. Uncertainty, anxiety, fear. Where do we find comfort when it feels like the end of the road? There is no easy way through or out. Yet there is one thing of which I am confident—endings, even deaths, are not the last word. The photo of arrows pointing…

  • Setting the table

    Setting the table

    Setting the table for supper was my responsibility for some of my childhood years. Five forks, five knives, five spoons, five plates, five napkins. It was routine. It was part of the Brown family evening ritual. Each of us went our separate ways during the day, but we gathered at…

  • Harboring

    Harboring

    In recent days I’ve been thinking about harboring. My reflection started sometime after U.S. troops were sent to Los Angeles and President Trump bombed nuclear sites in Iran. It has continued as Congress struggles with the U.S. budget proposal, deportations of law-abiding immigrants increase, and the Supreme Court hands down…

  • Pop’s Day

    Pop’s Day

    My car was loaded with all my earthly possessions. I was ready to embark on a journey of a lifetime. A journey from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Appleton, Wisconsin, where I would make my post-graduation home. I was driving solo from the southern U.S. to the northern U.S. A several-day…

  • Washed

    Washed

    As I pulled into the carwash, aligned my tires with the track that would carry my car from dirty to clean, and released the steering wheel, I instinctively reached for my phone on the dash. For the next three minutes I snapped photos like there was no tomorrow, recording the…

  • Blossom/flourish, wither/perish

    Blossom/flourish, wither/perish

    I can’t name the precise date when plants and their flowers past their prime began to fascinate me, but sometime in the last couple of years my camera with me behind it began to gravitate toward “spent” flowers.  I’m a gullible customer of Trader Joe’s cut flowers. I bring them…

  • Listening to the quiet voices

    Listening to the quiet voices

    It is easy for me to be overwhelmed and distracted by the loud voices filling our airwaves. You too hear them. Last week they included things like the air traffic controller problems in our nation’s airports, the struggles of the U.S. House of Representatives as it finalizes the next budget…

  • Confounding peace

    Confounding peace

    When Sputnik, the first human-made satellite to orbit the earth, traveled across the skies over my hometown soon after its launch, my mom, dad and we three children were lying on a blanket in our backyard at 2:00 a.m. with binoculars in hand to watch its faint, blinking light and…

  • Good?!Friday

    Good?!Friday

    Early one Friday morning, as the sky was beginning to lighten in the east, I made my way to the balcony with my breakfast tray in hand. As I turned the door knob, I glanced down through the glass to the porch floor, and there he was, lying motionless with…