There was a sense of urgency about the way mini waterfalls and rapids formed in the otherwise docile water. Its beauty—flowing at the foot of a bucolic green hillside dotted with dandelions—reminded me how the moments I love most are fleeting...
Find a snow bank, about four feet high; maybe something off to the left of the sidewalk your dad snowplowed this morning before going to work. Pull your mittens up tight and start digging at about a foot below the top of the bank. (A foot is a safe bet for a roof. Shouldn’t collapse.) … Continue reading How to Read in the Snow
Out of nowhere I remembered how much I love magic tricks and fireworks and I felt really happy. Peaceful happy. Fun happy. In awe happy. Don't question why happy.
I laughed at the memory and wanted to share it with Dad, but then I remembered that Dad is gone and so I didn't feel like writing about chairs anymore.
"It’s safer to be a grackle, yes, but if I truly want to live in the fullness of all that life throws at me, I know I need to be a cardinal."
I read the letters, but not the ramblings because, you know, I'd have plenty of time before our next Zoom call to do that. Then he up and died, just like that, on Monday night.
When I was nineteen and he was twenty four and we had a several-thousand-dollar hospital bill to pay because we’d just had a baby, he died. After paying thousands of dollars for an expensive casket because my mother-in-law didn’t want her son’s body eaten by bugs, ever (perfectly preserved forever, which isn’t how nature works), … Continue reading Headstone(d) (and looking for advice)
March 12, 2020: Jim had minor surgery. In the hospital waiting room, large bottles of hand sanitizer were placed on every table and everyone sat far apart from each other. It was clear we’d all heard of something called coronavirus, especially when I sneezed and the entire room got quiet. “It’s just allergies, I’m sure,” … Continue reading Life In (and on the brink of leaving) the Bubble
I’m writing this on February 28, 2021, and I hear a train a mile away as the crow flies. When the wind blows a certain way, its whistle is as loud as if that train was passing through the valley that is my backyard. On February 28, 1983, two weeks before my due date, the … Continue reading The Feeling that Will Never Have an Explanation
I can melt a bowl of ice cream with all the tears I cry when I rewatch This Is Us. Sad tears, happy tears, a-thousand-other-emotions tears. This Is Us opens cages I locked years ago; cages I didn’t think had keys anymore. Didn’t I move on from ______? Apparently not. Part of why I get … Continue reading How “This is Us” got motherhood and grief right
