I’ve just spent a week home alone. My daughter and husband went to Minnesota for a week to visit my oldest daughter, see a hockey game and hang out with family. It was a win-win-win because I was given six quiet days with the house to myself… Well, almost to myself. Just me, the chinchilla […]
Living the 2nd UU Principle in a world filled with fear, hatred and violence.
I shared this at my Unitarian Universalist Fellowship November 8, 2015. It created a robust conversation about shared responsibility, compassion and community. Opening Words: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “By our silence, by our willingness to compromise principle… by our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim, […]
Warmer Waters
In memory of Mimi Ward, who passed away ten years ago and in honor of Lucy Bogue who celebrates ten years of remission from leukemia. I wrote this poem thinking of both of them at the time, and there is sadness today that makes me think of these geese, and joy that makes me grateful […]
Beneath the blanket of anger.
She looked twenty years older than her true age. Was it because she had a difficult life? Because she was a mother of three young children? That’s what I thought when I first met her. I knocked on the screen door, with the rusty handle, and the woman who answered, “Marie”, pushed open the door […]
Silence seems to be the easiest word
My worldview changed on August 7, 2015, the day that Lara Sobel, a VT social worker was murdered. I have been a social worker since I was 21. My family might tell you I have been a social worker my entire life. I am driven to help others, to be a good listener, to help […]
Walking in the cultural kitchen of friendship
“What do you miss most about Thailand?” I ask Lek as we drive home from campus one afternoon. The quiet moments in the long drive to my daughter’s high school keep me peppering our guest with questions of his homeland. We talk about similarities and differences between the schools in Vermont versus his school in […]
Eldest
The life force that propelled her way into our world took my breath away. Immediately we began a dance, connecting and disconnecting. From the first moment she could use her vocal chords, her song was strong. At five she chose the violin; at twelve she chose voice; at fifteen she followed her passion all the […]
Sometimes the name they give you is all wrong…
Sometimes the name they give you is all wrong, like my friend Zap. He’s as cool and brainiac as they come, but the boys down on “D” wing think he’s stupid, like he’s been trippin’ or got some wire treatment at the Retreat. But he ain’t. Zap just keeps to himself, he don’t talk to […]
Re-visions and snowshoeing
This morning I made my first trek in the snow with my favorite Christmas present, a pair of LL Bean snowshoes. The light purple aluminum frames didn’t have much of a challenge in the four-inches of snow that covers the ground, and I found myself thinking about my current novel and the editing process. Vermont […]
Pigs on the beach
Pigs on the Beach By Sarah Ward, July 2007 Eighteen years ago our friendship bloomed. Her open mind and laissez faire ways so opposite to mine She pried me open with her smile, filling my empty spaces with gentle reassurance; quieting my anxieties, acknowledging my nightmares. Our hearts broke when I left Alaska, but she […]
Sarah Ward 