Two friends and Summer Holidays — Sidra, her two thick braids hanging down to her waist and her face lit up with a dimpled smile, sat precariously on a branch of a loquat tree, trying to balance herself while reaching out for the biggest cluster of sumptuous orange fruit hanging at the end. …

Building Persistence — One fall day in 2021, not too long ago, I took my eldest daughter, 8, for her soccer practice. Since my younger ones were, at a rare occasion, not with me I was looking forward to making use of this time and running 5k around the soccer field. I was…

A Portrait of my Father The room was awash with the orange waning sunlight as he walked in. He methodically placed a big glass bowl on the dining table, a ceramic plate to its left and his favorite paring knife in the middle. Before he sat down on the buffeted…

In response to Coffee Challenge; Why I am a pro-shout-out movement — I made circles on the dusty ground with my shiny black shoes, avoiding any eye contact with other children playing around me. It was my third day of 5th grade at a new school, in a strange town far away from all the comforts I had known and grown to…

A tribute to generosity, love, and selflessness Your abundance is not measured by what you have, it is created by what you share. — Heidi Catherine Culbertson, Wisdom and Recipes Her stubby fingers moved nimbly, piercing the fabric and pulling the thread through the cotton fibers. I watched her every…

And why I read and write — I went to bed last night after a productive day of research and writing. I had a lovely bedtime with the kids. I read to them from my daughter’s third-grade pamphlet about the history of Michigan and was frankly quite appalled about the quality of content being taught in our…

Seek and thou shalt find it Love is not a static concept that one can define. Don’t bother looking for it in the dictionary. To truly understand what it means to us, we must look inside and around ourselves. The more I think about what it has meant for me…

Memories of food, childhood, and love — I plunge the measuring cup to scoop out the white powdery flour from the canister and mix it up with tepid water. My daughter stands on a step stool all giddy about getting her hands into the gooey mixture. “Make a fist,” I tell her softly. …

How to build a relationship with your feathered friends Can you imagine stepping outside into your garden or taking a walk in a park and not hearing any birdsong? Not even a chirp or a tweet? You don’t have to be a birder to appreciate how strange that would be. How very eerie. Deep Historical Connection Humans have roughly…