CHAPTERS: Kate Arends
Every (life) chapter has at least one memorable moment, sentence, or story.
Every (life) chapter has at least one memorable moment, sentence, or story. What are yours? In Chapters, I ask creative people to reflect on the stories of their lives and respond to any of the below prompts (in whatever way they wish).
In the latest installment, we hear from Kate Arends—founder of Wit & Delight and the writer behind House Call—who shares memories, musings, and lessons learned along the way.
Kate’s Chapters
I. Slow Story
There comes a time in a woman’s life when she realizes she is the cliché. Mine came in July, mid-heatwave, watching my own car roll down the driveway without me. I stood there, barefoot on the pavement, stunned. This wasn’t the first time I’d have to explain what had happened. It wouldn’t be the last.
At sixteen, on my very first solo drive, I rear-ended someone, locked my keys in the car, and stood there like an idiot, wondering if freedom was supposed to feel like this—humiliating and expensive.
Another time, I forgot to put the car in park and had to chase it, which—if you’ve never had to do this—let me tell you, it humbles you. If anyone had been watching, I assume they would have quietly turned away out of respect.
Then there was the time I lost control of my rollerblades and hit a literal wall so hard I thought I’d dislocated my dignity. The time I misjudged a step and fell like it was my job in front of the guy I was trying to impress. The time my grocery bag exploded in a parking lot, scattering produce across four lanes of traffic.
Me versus physics. And physics always wins. I’m nothing if not consistent.
For years, I thought this meant something was wrong with me. I am not normal! Something is WRONG WITH ME! I would cry to my husband after backing his truck into a wall that “came out of nowhere.”
Did the world make me a terrible driver, or am I simply playing my part in some kind of sick joke where my own carelessness is the punchline? Am I fundamentally unfit to operate heavy machinery for the rest of eternity? Now, at forty, I look out at the horizon and wonder if the next fall might break a hip. I see my fumbling, my chronic lack of spatial awareness, for what it was.
The world wasn’t punishing me—it was trying to get my attention.
Each accident, a little shove. Each near miss, a quiet reminder:
Get out of your head. Get into your life.
Look at what’s in front of you. Relax a little.
Maybe try to slow down.
It only took seven accidents—and maybe a few more—for me to finally listen.
(Okay, maybe I haven’t totally learned my lesson. But I’m trying.)
II. Sob Story
He broke up with me on graduation day. No explanation. No real warning. One minute, I had a plan. The next, I had nothing but a cap, a gown, and a hollowed-out feeling in my chest.
I couldn’t see what was right in front of me. Not then. All I knew was that he was leaving for grad school without me. That whatever version of my future had included him was now off-limits. It felt unfair and wrong. So I called and called, and he didn’t pick up.
I packed my car and drove north. To Minnesota—a state I had never bothered to think about. A place that, at the time, was just somewhere else to be. I wasn’t chasing a dream. I was just moving because standing still—because going home—wasn’t an option I could face.
I used to replay that day, trying to understand. Trying to see the moment when the tracks split, when my life veered one way instead of another. If he had given me a reason, would I have stayed? If he had answered the phone, would I have followed him? Would I have ever ended up here, in this life, in this place I’ve now called home for twenty years?
Sometimes, I still wonder. But mostly, I don’t.
Later, he apologized. Shared his secret. Some parts of a story don’t belong to us until they do. We don’t need someone to complete us. Just someone who stays.
We don’t need the whole story. We don’t need love to stitch up the hollowness. In unknowing, I found my sea legs. I learned to look at a fork in the road and see not the loss of one life but the possibility of another. A sharp curve can undo everything. Or it can open a door you never would have knocked on.
The rest is just a story I no longer need an answer to.
III. Spring Story
Spring isn’t a beginning. It’s what comes after the end.
I don’t love the first bloom as much as I love the waiting. The skeletal trees, the soft rot, the moment before proof of life. Renewal isn’t a fresh start. It’s decay, rearranged. Proof that death is part of the process.
Every year, winter swallows the world. Every year, I let it.
IV. Funny Story
There was something in my bedroom that did not belong. I could hear it shuffling among my belongings, my clothing, my jewelry.
I stood in my living room in a bathrobe and a bike helmet, oven mitts on each hand, gripping a decorative antler like a weapon. In the other hand, I held a plastic bin to catch my prey. I watched the door. I waited.
A few moments earlier, I had been eating popcorn on the couch, nursing a bad cold, and watching my Sunday night shows. Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed movement.
A furry little face was approaching me. Slowly. Not in an I’m going to eat your face kind of way, but more like, Hey buddy, what’s happening? Mind sharing your snack?
It paused. I paused. We looked at each other. This squirrel with an inquisitive brow had made itself at home in my apartment, and I wondered if I was hallucinating from that heavy pour from the NyQuil bottle.
I screamed. All hell broke loose.
V. Travel Story
The men in Amsterdam are built differently. I couldn’t put my finger on why, aside from the height and the blondeness, until I found myself at a disco. The men in Amsterdam dance with you, not on you. As I flailed my arms and legs, they respected my space. They kept a polite, rhythmic distance. Respectful. Civilized. They’ll give you a thumbs up and wait for an invitation. Nothing like the sloppy, lustful grinding of my youth, where someone’s breath was always too close to my ear, where hands moved without asking.
One night, I danced until the sun came up. I danced to music I didn’t recognize but somehow knew. Let my body become just another moving thing in the room, a part of the pulse, the collective knowing. The beat didn’t ask me what I did for a living, if I wanted kids, if I wanted to go home with it. It just asked me to stay.
When we stepped outside, the morning was purple. Shoes ruined. Best friend beside me. See, I knew you’d love it, she smiled. A ham and cheese croissant in my hand, warm and flaky, asking nothing of me but to eat it. I wanted more. More of whatever that was.
This was twelve years ago. When I came home that summer, I got engaged and got married. I have yet to dance into the morning hours again because rocking babies back and forth at dawn just doesn’t hit the same.
Now, I sit at my kitchen table, pressing my fingers into the soft middle of a croissant, trying to remember the feeling. Trying to find my way back.
VI. Their Story
At 73 years old, my grandpa found out he was adopted.
His mother’s dying wish was for her children to find their half-brother, the baby she gave up. But my grandpa already knew. Maybe not in words, not in paperwork, but in the way that truth settles inside the body long before it’s spoken aloud.
The way the abuse had made sense. The way he had not been loved.
But here’s the thing: He lived full of love. Far from perfect, but in awe of life’s smallest pleasures, the way only a person intimate with pain can be. He laughed easily. He delighted in simple things. He carried no bitterness.
When his story changed, so did mine.
His life had been shaped by a truth he hadn’t known, but it had never defined him. He had written his own story anyway.
And in knowing that, I could write mine, too.
VII. Your Story
My story is a paradox.
A seeker who already knows. A maker who unravels. Rooted but restless. Trusting, but questioning. Always moving, always finding myself in familiar places with new eyes.
I spent the first half of my life becoming and the second half unlearning everything I tried on that wasn’t mine.
In all my search for truth, I’ve found it isn’t black and white—it’s everything in between.
In all my search for freedom, I’ve realized it was never out there—it was in knowing what to let go of.
Thank you, Kate!
 | A guest post by
|
Love Kate and these stories were so beautifully told, thank you!
Wow wow WOW, this is dreamy. In all of these stories I see resilience. A bravery to keep moving when life feels hard. Thanks for sharing this gem of a piece ♥️