When an old friend asked me if I’d write something for her blog about moving to a small town, I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d been thinking about the difference between Atlanta (where I lived for 26 years) and Lafayette, Indiana (where my husband and I moved in April) for weeks. But I hadn’t yet organized my thoughts and wasn’t sure where to begin.

I didn’t want to talk about not missing Atlanta’s traffic. Though it’s true, it hardly seemed worth writing about. And I didn’t want to…

Lights exploding – in crashes and booms – woke us to the storm early Monday morning. It wasn't one of those polite climatic conversations where lightning flashes and thunder responds, and they give each other room to breathe and you can tell whose turn it is next all the way through.

This was a tirade…

Some remote magic has brought my mother back to me through her things.

Red leather journal from 1949, her name embossed in gold on the cover. Daybooks where she recorded the details of family life in tiny notes: the weather, what we ate, which child had a doctor appointment, what letters she wrote, what bills she paid, what my father was mad about that day. Letters she wrote to him on onionskin, thick sheets of personal stationary, delicate foldable airmail…