Monthly Review: June 2025

Yet another night of

Open eyes and mind

Unraveling what I cannot undertake—too many cares to

Rest. I rise,

Come to this place

Of quiet, as though

My clamorous soul can

Find stillness in reclining chairs and circling records, and here

Open the little book of my thoughts, all

Rough drafts never

To be read by human eyes.

Skim through them with me here,

Dear Lord, who knows them altogether,

Even when I in my shame

Leave my fears

In shadow. But with you there is no darkness, for you are the

God who sees, and

Here with me you sit,

Turning the pages,

Making me lie down,

Yes, on such sleepless nights.

Stay with me now, and let my heart be staid.

Ordain what works you will, and let me trust them best.

Uplift me when I fall, and righteous I will stand.

Lighten my heavy eyes, and bring me into rest.

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Here's what I read, cooked, and created in the month of June.

What I Read

• Divine Rivals, Rebecca Ross (★★★★★)

• Ruthless Vows, Rebecca Ross (★★★★★)

• A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara (★★★★★)

• True Life in Uncanny Valley, Deb Caletti (★★★)

• Run, Ann Patchett (★★★)

• The Summer of Broken Things, Margaret Peterson Haddix (★★)

• Crazy Rich Asians, Kevin Kwan (★★)

If you want to hear the rationale behind my rating, head to my Goodreads for full reviews.

What I Cooked

• Spicy Honey Mustard Salmon Bowls

Difficulty: ★★

Flavor: ★★★★★

Keeper: Yes

Comments: My husband commented that he'd eat this any day. Throw some Persian cucumbers in with the lettuce and thank me later.

• Havarti Avocado Sandwich

Difficulty: ★★

Flavor: ★★★★

Keeper: Yes

Comments: I'm really into a good sandwich right now, and this was a good sandwich.

• Cowboy Caviar

Difficulty: ★

Flavor: ★★★★

Keeper: Yes

Comments: I used canned Rotel in place of the Roma tomatoes, subbed scallions for the red onion, and omitted the avocado. This salad kept in the fridge for about a week and was still decent, but it makes a lot, so keep that in mind if you choose to make it.

• Queso Blanco

Difficulty: ★

Flavor: ★★★★

Keeper: Yes

Comments: I don't love queso dips that use Velveeta, so even though American cheese is essentially the same thing, I was excited to try this one with some chipotle pulled pork nachos. It was good enough that I'd make it again!

What I Created

• A draft for Frontline magazine

• A draft for Commonplace magazine

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May your days be filled with beauty, and may your heart be filled with the willingness to see and give thanks for it.

Monthly Review: May 2025

I can’t remember the last time I visited, but it must have been at least a couple years. Who’s left to visit but the memories? Growing up in a college town and practically on the campus itself, I always knew colleges to be transitory by nature, but as I led my visiting family through office-lined hallways, I recognized fewer and fewer nameplates. This was my dad’s office. This was my mom’s. But they too left years ago now, and with them my reason to stop by campus.

But with graduation upon us and a cousin of mine matriculating, I returned to my alma mater for commencement, the first I’d sat through since my husband’s six years earlier. I scanned the program for familiar names—perhaps that girl’s sister was in my society, or that kid’s older brother sat beside me in Baptist Heritage. The last name on my own diploma has been married away, and few would recognize it now.

In the muggy gymnasium, forgotten details flood my memory: the tidy rows of folding chairs flanked by bleachers bursting with people, the gonfalons and mace and professors in regalia (all neatly explained in the program), the exact shade of ugly yellow-brown on the front wall, the trails of graduates in black gowns waiting for one chapter to end and a new one to begin. How excited I had been to turn the page seven years ago when it was my turn. My pale blue tassel fluttered in the May breeze, the valedictorian’s medal nestled between the gold cords around my neck, and my engagement ring sparkled its reminder of the next milestone to come only weeks later. There was more joy in that one moment than there had been in the four years leading up to it, and the future seemed as bright as the spring sunshine.

Of course, nothing went to plan. 3 months, 25 job applications and 6 interviews later, I took up residence in a middle school classroom so miserable I regularly cried on my morning commute and resigned on my final day of school. Instead of applying to the grad school in Maryland my favorite professor had rhapsodized about, I put myself through online master’s classes with the retail job I had picked up in college and just never quit. I landed an online teaching position thinking I’d try it for a year (that was five years ago).

Our head of school told us to write “Where I’m From” poems in professional development one year. I didn’t show mine to anybody, but in its half-formed lines I wrote of Bible quizzing tournaments and church pews. In an early meeting with my principal, she wanted to know where I went to school. “You know, they did a good job with you,” she told me.

Sitting in that folding chair, watching the faces of the faculty members on the stage, I think about that poem again, where I’m from. I see my faculty advisor who introduced us to poems that made people cry in class and told us we were human beings, not robots. I see the history teacher who told me I’d make a good college professor. I see the team leaders for the ESL missions trip I took, who still call me Rockstar Rachel even though I did not, in fact, rock all that much. I see the “To the Praise of His Glory” motto overhanging the stage, framing the people who lived out that message before me every day for four years.

You could have gone someplace else, earned more money, taught fewer classes, published more papers, impacted more lives, but this is where you chose to dedicate your time, whether for five years or twenty-five. In the providence of God, your years as a professor coincided with mine as a student. In every class I took, whether it was psychology or Shakespeare, you equipped me with the tools I have used to build my career, such as it has been. You are in the mission statement I wrote at my first-ever back to school in-service, the curriculum I’ve designed, the lessons I plan (even if I don’t use the five-page template you gave me in my secondary and middle school teaching methods course), the poems I share with students, every part of me down to the way I structure a sentence. You sent me out into the world to, as the quotation in my email signature reads, do well and do good. I look up into your dear, familiar faces, and I know: you are where I’m from.

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Here's what I read, cooked, and created in the month of May.

What I Read

• The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness, Jonathan Haidt (★★★★★)

• Beach Read, Emily Henry (★★★★)

• Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut (★★★)

• The Unwedding, Ally Condie (★★★)

If you want to hear the rationale behind my rating, head to my Goodreads for full reviews.

What I Cooked

• Rhubarb Streusel Muffins

Difficulty: ★★

Flavor: ★★★★★

Keeper: Yes

Comments: Not too sweet, great crumb. I didn't have whole-wheat flour, but all purpose was great.

• Jalapeño Pepper Jack Cheeseburger Sliders

Difficulty: ★★

Flavor: ★★★★★

Keeper: Yes

Comments: Doing slider meat sloppy Joe-style instead of in patties? Genius. These were so flavorful and fun. I feel confident they'll be showing up on my meal plan again this summer.

What I Created

• Original blackout poem "Memorial Day"

• A little progress in my project

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May your days be filled with beauty, and may your heart be filled with the willingness to see and give thanks for it.

Monthly Review: April 2025

I’ve always known your eyes: they are my brother’s, crystalline blue and fringed with those long, heavy lashes only boys are blessed with. When you were born we wondered when the newborn blue would fade, but three years later your eyes are still as bold and brilliant as an ocean icing over.

Everything else, though, has changed—I scrolled through pictures of you as a two-week old, a two-month old, even a brand-new two-year old, and in each you seem like a separate being from the person beside me now, snacking on popcorn and earnestly watching Winnie the Pooh (I loved him too when I was your age). This last year has brought your baby sister, whom you seem far more enthused about than your dad was about me when I came along, and your baby cousin, whose name I hope you never learn to pronounce properly. At three, you are quite clearly your own person, though I suppose you always were and we had yet to find out what kind of person that would be.

Your arrival in the family meant I had to figure out who Aunt Rachel was, too. I tried to fix dinner whenever I came to visit in the first few months of your life, and each time I got a little better at holding a baby (your steadily decreasing floppiness helped). Once you started talking, you learned more quickly than I expected how to say my name, and you figured out that Uncle Mitch belongs with me. You are confused whenever I come through the door without him in tow. On rare occasions, you have let me read you books, but you are usually happy for me to build you Magna-tile castles, if only so you can topple them. You enjoy a good cookie, and I enjoy bringing them for you. Neither of my parents have sisters, just one brother for my mom, and whenever I sit down beside you I wonder what memories you are making with your Aunt Rachel that you will keep forever. I wonder whether you will care what I remember from these days.

We are piled onto a couch in the dim basement—two of my three brothers, my husband, my sisters-in-law, the three next-generation Mayeses, and I think about how we, living 900 miles from our only first cousins, never had this growing up, but our families will. My brothers are here. My nieces are here. You’re here, my little nephew who is getting bigger every time I see you. I can see my life as it was and my life as it someday will be overlaid atop my life right now. Somehow I feel both like I am ten again and like I am fifty, like I am peeking ahead to the next chapter. I want to make sure it’s a happy one.

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Here's what I read, cooked, and created in the month of April.

What I Read

• C.S. Lewis: A Life, Alister E. McGrath (★★★★)

• A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy, Tia Levings (★★★★)

• Every Riven Thing: Poems, Christian Wiman (★★★)

• The One and Only Ruby, Katherine Applegate (★★★)

• The One and Only Family, Katherine Applegate (★★★★)

• Beth and Amy, Virginia Kantra (★★★)

If you want to hear the rationale behind my rating, head to my Goodreads for full reviews.

What I Cooked

• Honey Mustard Chicken Melts

Difficulty: ★★

Flavor: ★★★★★

Keeper: Yes

Comments: I am already looking forward to the next time I get to make these. I did not have fresh herbs, and I subbed a mix of peperoncini and pickled jalapeños for the pickles, but my goodness, these are some of the tastiest sandwiches I’ve had in a long time. In the future, I think I might sub arugula for the spinach and put it on after baking the sandwiches rather than during, but otherwise, no notes.

• Chicken, Leek, and Rice Soup

Difficulty: ★★

Flavor: ★★★★

Keeper: Yes

Comments: Just a nice, simple spring soup.

• Carrot Soup with Tahini and Crisped Chickpeas

Difficulty: ★★

Flavor: ★★★

Keeper: No

Comments: I need to stop making carrot soups. I always think I’m going to like them more than I actually do.

• Blackberry Moscow Mule Mocktail

Difficulty: ★★

Flavor: ★★★★★

Keeper: Yes

Comments: I think I can see myself becoming a mocktail girl after making these. I did use flavored sparkling water (blackberry, to be precise), and even though the recipe doesn’t specify straining out the mint, blackberry, and lime pieces, that would probably be preferable for most people.

• Creamy Lemon Herb Dip

Difficulty: ★

Flavor: ★★★★★

Keeper: Yes

Comments: I've never made a veggie/chip dip with cream cheese, but it was delicious.

• Pub Potatoes

Difficulty: ★★★

Flavor: ★★★★★

Keeper: Yes

Comments: I made these twice, mostly because I cut the potatoes too small and overboiled them the first time around and I needed redemption. While fiddly, they are quite tasty for a special occasion.

• Strawberry Crunch Salad

Difficulty: ★★

Flavor: ★★★★

Keeper: Yes

Comments: I’m not sure why the recipe has you add the nuts and sugar to the skillet simultaneously. I think the sugar needed more time to melt before caramelizing the nuts, and I’m unsure whether both the sugared almonds and the pistachios were necessary, but this was a nice, springy salad.

What I Created

• Original sonnet "Alive Forevermore"

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May your days be filled with beauty, and may your heart be filled with the willingness to see and give thanks for it.