Well, hey. We know each other but we don’t really know each other, so let’s get down to it, yes? Yesterday, it was realized that I am passive aggressive. It was also realized that this is quite common in women, as we’ve been raised to assume a certain posture, a certain persona, a certain portrait
My girlfriend is a Montessori teacher and she is continually supplying me with small bits of parenting wisdom – a kind, charitable neighbor leaving shreds of lettuce leaves on her patio for me, the boggled spring bunny. Her most recent shred was not a leaf but an entire week’s worth of substance to chew on,
The text came from Ken while I was on the west coast: “Can I put the rock climbing wall in our bedroom?” The rock climbing wall, I’d thought, was a project for later, but I’ve also never been good at predicting the milestones of a child. When Bee received her big girl room, it wasn’t
She: Ending her sentences in a high-pitched whisper, like there’s a surprise, like she’s a rainbow, her final words a pot of gold. Fighting the afternoon nap. Favoring cashews. “Reading” from my devotional at night in our bed, substituting Psalms verses for monster encounters. Memorizing iPhone passwords. Hacking said iPhones, taking 3,000 photos on said iPhone cameras. Naming her stuffed koala “Judes My Husband or Gokey or
Just last week, in the kitchen, where she was still not yet tall enough to reach the pistachios, she asks, “Where’d you guys get me?” “From heaven,” says Ken, one room over, because he comes up with great, short answers, the kind that end in a period. Factual. Truth. A statement. My sentences end in
It started Sunday, with the tantrums. They were not hers, but mine, and they were fueled by a variety of external factors, excuses – too much noise, not enough rest, too much sugar, not enough time – and I had become itchy with discontent. I was on edge, a jagged, barbed wire version of myself
This is the part of my story I didn’t want to write. It’s the part the filmmaker sometimes leaves on the cutting floor, because the character does something to offend, like cracks her gum or runs over a cat with her car, and you think, “Can I finish this movie? Can I get past this
I’ve been craving cheese souffles. The last time I ate one, the kind I’m thinking of, my father-in-law was still alive. Ken and I had just moved home from Los Angeles and we were in a state of limbo, sleeping on his childhood sheets and searching for something that could be ours again. On Saturday