Ask me how I know a woman is fully capable of leadership and I will tell you of a 3am morning, in a darkened nursery, rocking a baby with croup. His airways are swelled, he must sit upright. You rock and rock and rock, his body heavy with sleep, with relief, with you. Once rest
A daughter, running for the dining room register as the heat kicks on, perching atop the floor vents until her bare legs turn tiger-striped with indentations. We sit together, side-by-side, quiet. She asks me to count her freckles.
In the grocery store, my second year of college. I’m standing in the checkout lane, a cart full of “necessities” – a new shower curtain liner, shaving cream, Special K. I scan the rack displaying magazines and gum, flip through the latest issue of Glamour. A woman with my grandmother’s earrings waits in line behind
On the night of a bad day, I wonder if people truly change. If we’re all just out here screwing each other up or if there is, as I’ve been taught, a capacity for a better way. Can the envious toss away layers of green? The angry encounter peace? Can the yeller stop yelling?
I don’t profess much expertise in the homekeeping department, which is precisely why I so chiefly excel in my role as Ruthless Curator. The less there is to dust, the less there is to dust, you get me? Still, Ken has twice this month complimented the state of our floors and I’ve become no stranger
I’ve been toting around a notebook daily, minutely. At home, it sits next to swollen oranges and a few bruised apples. Otherwise, my coat pocket. Yesterday, Bee asks me if I write lists so I don’t forget things at the grocery store, and I tell her yes, but also so I don’t forget the grocery
An italicized passage in Bee’s science book. She and I are weighted under a shared blanket, two dogs snoring at our feet when we read it. Dolania americana has the shortest lifespan of any mayfly: the adult females of the species live for less than five minutes. Is that true? she asks me with wide
There are no shortage of things to work on in this grand life, no limits to areas in need of refinement. Of late, for me? Communication. In specific? Tongue-holding.
