“THE TOSSING OF TRADITION”

And so my niece has gotten married. At 22, Martha Grace is the same age her mother was when she married back in 1973. My sister Ann was kind enough to have me, her 12-year-old, chubby-cheeked baby sister, in her wedding. I was quite proud to be included, and it made me feel terribly grown-up. No one bothered to school me in the finer points of wedding etiquette however, because when Ann threw the bouquet I practically mowed down my other sister, Ginny, to catch the flying flowers as they arced through the front yard of my family’s home.

“FROM SIXTEEN TO SIXTY-FOUR”

On an August day so hot even the television meteorologists had run out of words to describe it—“sweltering” no longer seemed to do the heat justice—I joined throngs of suburban women rushing to our neighborhood Target in search of school supplies. As we lunged for three-ring binders, lined notebooks, and multi-colored highlighters, I might have looked like any other well-intentioned mother readying Junior for his upcoming year in the classroom...

“COMING HOME AGAIN. AND AGAIN.”

In the offbeat film "Leaving Normal", two women head West to make new lives for themselves. Their reasons for packing up their possessions and striking out for parts unknown are varied and depressing, including romantic histories that would make my mother blush. Having nothing to lose, they decide to get the heck out of Dodge, or, in this case, Normal, Oklahoma. Or in my case, Jackson...

“HONORING THE MUNDANE AND THE MEMORABLE”

On the dresser in my bedroom, next to the perfume bottles and the black-and-white picture of my mother when she was a sophomore at Ole Miss, I have a pottery jar with the word “blessings” stamped on it. It contains assorted bits of paper on which I occasionally jot down reminders of what matters to me, such as experiences and encounters for which I’m grateful....