With Arms Wide Open

Thursday afternoon, with my tummy full of food and my heart full of family, I stood at the bottom of a set of stairs I have looked up many times.  I didn't stand at the bottom for very long.  I took them two at a time- dodging the creaks like a thief.  It's funny how a set of stairs can bring back so many memories.  Amazing memories {racing down for Christmas mornings} .  Painful memories {missed steps and stubbed toes} .  Crazy memories {a brother just behind the corner, waiting to scare me} .  Bad memories {stomped feet and hurled words} .  Funny memories {Mom.  Seriously.  When are you going to paint these stairs??} .  Beautiful memories {a grand entrance for a senior prom} . Above those stairs was my bedroom.  My safe place.  The harbor of my dreams and hopes and ambitions.  It was my space.  It was the place where I carved the initials of all the boys I ever had a crush on into my bedpost.  I...

How many blog posts under the sun must center on Robert Frost's famous words... The Road Not Taken.   How many aspiring writers dream of penning a poem so well loved, so well remembered, so meaningful.  How many of us have claimed with pride, "YES!  That's my story!"  How many of us have slathered those words over old wounds... covered pieces of our past under that banner.  You know the one I mean... And yet, there's a part of that poem that often gets looked over.  We claim the last three lines for our own.  "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." But what about the pause before the thunder... "I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence..." With a sigh.  Somehow, I don't imagine he meant a sigh of satisfaction. Maybe a sigh of longing.  Of regret. I can slather that picture over so many place in my life.  Places where two choice...