Barbara Swander Miller

Honoring the journey in everyday life

recent posts

Category: Memoir

  • The Baumpies arrive

    A shaft of moonbeam pierced the upper pane of glass, so bright that as it hit my face, I thrashed, untangling my restless legs from the crisp percale that imprisoned them. Wadded now where the foot of my bed met the sloping ceiling, my sheets released me to the light’s magnetic pull. Cool, rough floorboards…

  • Who threw the cheese?

    Kids and Their Secrets The errant slice of American cheese that ended up on the bathroom floor has baffled all investigators for more than fifty years. Its softened edges, missing corner, and sweaty surface reside far back in my brain’s mystery album. Not a single one of us four kids admitted to tossing it beside…

  • Call me

    A poem about becoming Mastermind, I once was tagged in my introverted days. Arranging, calculating, quietly driven. Then Field Marshal, planning, executing, holding the torch, urging my battalion into victory. Often Fixer, eager to improve any situation, to declaw a beast, and watch it smile. Sometimes Seven, grabbing every random chance for growth to enjoy…

  • White sheets in the moonlight

    I was exhausted. But my mind darted to one terrifying scenario after another. How far would a bullet penetrate through a clapboard cabin wall? Would I have a better chance of surviving if my bed were perpendicular to the outside wall? Or should I drag it longwise into the middle of the room? My thinking…

  • Bring back “The Benton Bugle!”

    My husband bemoans the lack of local newspaper reporting. There are still a couple of reporters, but our print news now comes mostly from the USA Today Network. As a former newspaper employee, going back to having a paper route when he was twelve, he despises reading the news online, even if it’s mostly the…

  • What I didn’t learn at church camp

    Dark clouds stormed across the lake that evening, as we sat in the camp mess hall staring at mashed potatoes and meatloaf. Our table, usually filled with noisy fourth and fifth graders wrapped in towels and damp bathing suits, was silent. Inside the safety of the third floor of the Quaker Haven lodge, a few campers…

  • Out of the mouth of babes

    I didn’t believe her. How could I? It was all so outlandish. Fish eyes! A tiny purse!  And yet, she was such a precocious child, or so we were told, that I wondered.  As new parents, we didn’t have other children for reference. Her first word was “Octi,” for the crocheted octopus she eventually carried…

  • The worst poem I ever wrote

    Thirty-some years ago, finally divorced after months of marital and individual counseling and hours of agony trying to understand it all, I was settling in my hometown with three kids and a regular visitation schedule to their dad. Alone, every other weekend, I had nothing to do, except fret and wonder what was happening while…

  • Will I ever talk again?

    How did I become so reluctant to talk to others in public? Having seen how the Myers-Briggs Personality Type impacts many students’ writing, I am fairly familiar with the types, and I know my own characteristics well. I happen to be an introvert, someone who regains energy by being alone. Lately, though, I’m reverting to…

  • When doing the right thing kicks your butt

    Giving blood was always a thing for some of my family.  My grandpa belonged to the hundred gallon club.  My mom did, too.  Okay, my brother says it couldn’t possibly be a “hundred gallons.” Ten gallons maybe? Every chance they had, they went to Ball Memorial Hospital in our hometown to give blood.   Following suit,…