Letting Go Archives - Soft In Hard Places

Evanescent

LisaPullenKent — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 04:46:05 +0000

When I was growing up we moved a lot, big moves crisscrossing the country. Perpetually the new kid, I never stayed long enough to feel like I fit in. Then, I married a man whose childhood was the opposite of … Continue reading →

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Not So Long Ago and Not So Far Away

LisaPullenKent — Sun, 17 Jan 2021 00:11:08 +0000

Contemplative by nature, the isolation of this COVID year has forced constant and not always welcome introspection. Magnetically drawn to the tales of Storybooke, the fictional town inhabited by intersecting Continue reading →

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Antidote to Disillusionment*

LisaPullenKent — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 02:39:23 +0000

*Reading given at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbia, online, August 9, 2020 “Always have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.” Maya Angelou In what do I place my trust? This profound, existential … Continue reading →

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Cancer in a COVID World

LisaPullenKent — Fri, 08 May 2020 20:29:55 +0000

Lately, my emotions are scrubbed up raw. Tender, like new skin. My nerve endings fire all the time. I feel everything without a buffer, as if there are no more desensitizing layers laid down with busy, distracted, numbing activity. Continue reading →

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View From A Quarantine

LisaPullenKent — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 00:06:38 +0000

”Is this our new normal?” we find ourselves wondering, though we know it can't go on forever. For now, though, we have nowhere to be except right where we are and that has never happened. I recognize it for the miracle that it is. But on Day eleventy-seven of our release from the confines of routine, I'm starting to feel a little adrift. Continue reading →

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Just Breathe

LisaPullenKent — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 19:47:33 +0000

Re-posted from March 6, 2014 “I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart.I am, I am, I am.” Sylvia Plath There’s a stillness that descends on the hospital late at night, softening the harshness … Continue reading →

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Love in the Stitches

LisaPullenKent — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 01:22:02 +0000

The older I get, the more I’m drawn homeward. When the weather turns cold, my craving for soup on the stove, a fire in the hearth, and time to knit begs to be slaked. Chilly temps find me cruising arts … Continue reading →

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Depth of Field

LisaPullenKent — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 00:05:09 +0000

It’s a gorgeous spring day on our 22 acres outside Fulton, a brocade of rolling green set against a periwinkle sky. It’s where I come to breathe. Today all four kids, their families, plus my dad and sister visiting from … Continue reading →

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Coming Home

LisaPullenKent — Wed, 28 Mar 2018 20:29:10 +0000

The night is a pleasant 68 degrees, but heat emanates from the bright stadium lights, and I’m damp beneath my Rock Bridge High School T-shirt. My boots clink on the aluminum steps as I climb past the student section and … Continue reading →

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A Good Enough Mother

LisaPullenKent — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 00:27:09 +0000

The words are sharp, a staccato litany of frustrations ricocheting around the room. They’re mine, directed at my misbehaving teenager. Adrenaline shoots through my veins. Careful, I think, sucking in a breath, holding it. The silence echoes loudly. In my … Continue reading →

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