BETWEEN BUSINESS CARDS™ - A writing and storytelling platform providing content and publishing services by Hawke Girl Media, LLC

Nothing But Net

The ball hit the rim. Stopped. And teetered. A hero would be made — or not — depending on which way it fell. My high school phys ed teacher, Ms.…

Tender Was the Night

I don’t believe in ghosts, but I frequently feel haunted. During our visit to the Minneapolis Institute of Art in fall of 2025, my husband Richard and I were both…

Looking for Gatsby

“You can’t go home again.” The writer Thomas Wolfe believed that if you returned to a place from your past, it wouldn’t be the same. My husband Richard also says…

The All-American

It was a cold, blustery January morning. Icicles draped the parking porte-cochère like holiday lights, frozen mid-melt. A rare recent southern winter storm left lacy ice patches on the dormant…

Crying Time

I wasn’t expecting to learn anything by sitting in a doctor’s waiting room. “It’s such a relief they got all the melanoma,” my friend had said to me after I…

Hometown Hero

Detroit did not come to my mind as a bucket list destination. But it was the perfect starting point for our next trip. My husband Richard was born in the…

Bound to Look Good

My daughter Kristen and I recently went shopping for undergarments. As we walked into Macy’s, I asked the young woman at the perfume counter, “Where do you keep your intimates?”…

Burning Down the House: A Lesson in Generosity and Persistence

In the 1920s, my father’s parents sharecropped land they rented from wealthy landowners in Delaware. My grandmother worked as the cook in the main houses. She was short and strong.…

Finding Christmas

We weren’t prepared for missing Christmas. It was an unseasonably mild December. A wintry mix of sleet and rain started early Christmas Eve morning, turning our yard into ice-crusted soggy…

Waiting for Light

Christmas is coming! On our childhood farm, not unlike hunting season’s opening day, my mother declared the beginning of the Christmas season. It launched with housework. Nestled among over a…

Pretty Girl

I met Ashley after she moved into her new digs in Brooklyn. Our daughter, Claire, lives in the same multi-story building — three floors up a marble and wrought iron…

Palm Reader

“Give me your hand. Let me see what is in your future.” My mother was a devout Catholic. Ironically, she also loved to read palms — mystical future telling carried…

Holy Dirt

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“Be careful with the words you release from your tongue. They cannot be put back.” My mouth burning from a habanero-laced pistachio, I nodded politely but didn’t really listen. The shaman was dispensing advice and selling chili peppers across a dusty street from the historic El Santuario de Chimayo. The dirt from this Catholic mission in New Mexico is believed to have healing powers. My husband and I entered the church through old wooden doors flanked by twin belfry towers. Crutches from tiny to large leaned against the cool thick adobe walls. Smoke from a hundred votive candles darkened the ceiling, wafting hope and prayers to the sun-lit heavens. A…

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