Michelle Martin

October 09, 2019

Brown-bagging it

I have never been among the ladies who lunch. Not that I don’t go out for lunch from time to time. I do, and I enjoy it. But most of the time, I pack my own sandwich and yogurt, carrots and apple.

September 18, 2019

Look at all the people

When I was a very small child, there was a finger game we used to play. With hands folded together, fingers interlaced and tucked inside our palms, we would say, “Here is the church.” With index fingers extended to come to a point, we’d say, “Here is the steeple.”

September 04, 2019

The blink of an eye

It’s amazing how fast it happens. You pull up to the curb outside the dorm and open the back of the car. Movers toss everything into a big bin: suitcases and boxes and pillows and laundry baskets full of everything from detergent to dishes.

August 21, 2019

To light a fire

When I was a child in Girl Scouts, I loved doing the things that no one ever let little girls do at home: whittling away at a piece of wood with a sharp knife, wandering along paths in the forest for hours and starting campfires.

August 07, 2019

Thoughts and prayers

I was taking a break from wandering the streets of downtown Philadelphia, home to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, when I heard about the terrorist attack in El Paso.

July 24, 2019

Paper, paper everywhere

Somehow, I thought that when my kids got older, things would be easier. Not so much to keep track of. And in so many ways, things are easier. I still bless the day Teresa learned to fasten her own seatbelt and I didn’t have to crawl halfway into the back seat every time we went anywhere in a car together.

July 10, 2019

Lazy days

I don’t know if anyone noticed, but summer happened. After a cool, wet spring that extended all the way to late June, temperatures climbed and the sun came out. At least for several hours most days, occasional thunderstorms notwithstanding.

June 19, 2019

Dads and grads

Nothing like a cool, rainy weekend to foster family togetherness. That’s what we got this weekend, as we celebrated Father’s Day five days after Frank’s graduation from high school.

June 05, 2019

Trimming the bushes

When we started trimming, the front bushes were overgrown, their leafy branches encroaching on the sidewalk and obscuring the windows.

May 22, 2019

Finding hope

In the last three days, I read a Chicago magazine story about the things you find if you just keep looking down in Chicago and a Chicago Tribune column by Mary Schmich about a woman who left her purse on the Red Line and had it returned to her. Then my 18-year-old son told me about finding someone’s wallet in a suburban fast-food restaurant parking lot and driving it over to the address listed on the ID.
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