Currently

I want you to give you back to me, he yells from his crib. The toddler is fighting an afternoon nap; I’m trying hard not to lose. I want you back, he whimpers. In my bedroom, Bee and I listen with our ears pressed to the monitor, waiting quietly for Scout to settle so we

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Happy Haul-idays

The hustle, the bustle. I can accurately claim neither, having just emerged from a fireside nap on the hard floor. In our home, we keep a tradition of letting the kids open a shared gift on a day where it feels like Christmas, be it November, December or beyond. This year, the day fell upon

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Currently

This week, the bulk of my daily conversations with friends, family, neighbors have been swollen with current events. We circle around kitchen tables and stretch our own small theories, thin solutions, blistered understanding. We clash. We talk ourselves tired. After a long while, everyone agrees to one thing and one thing alone: It’s complicated, but

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Currently

Ken, out of town. In the evenings, I survey the sink and realize every dish accounted for is my own, or one prepared by me. No smoothie blenders on the drying rack, no spatulas dyed turmeric neon from late-night curry. I spend the week cooking recipes he hates or has grown tired of. Tuna for

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How I Know

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

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Currently

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.

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A Woman, Her Body

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

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Currently

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

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