A text message from a girlfriend this weekend: I’m so heavy today. I didn’t sleep. All I could think about were the people being turned away. — I imagine you’re heavy today, too. I imagine you’re doing your best to decipher the news. I imagine you’re doing your best to put on a happy face
We turned on the Christmas music early this year. Just-after-the-election-early. By Thanksgiving, we’d already rotated through our favorite albums oh, two or three times? Dean Martin’s on round seven, currently. It just seemed we could all use a bit of soul salve. — My ears were tired, that’s all. In my inbox last weekend: Did
Mom? Can God turn himself into a wall? The question arrives from a backseat littered with cashew crumbs and flashcards atop CDs and board books. We’re on our way to a family reunion in southern Indiana, and I know we’re getting close because the hills make our bellies jump. What do you mean? I ask
“You have almost three dollars!” I tell her. We are sprawled on her bedroom floor amidst blocks and books, stuffed animals and blankets. Loose change is stacked into tidy piles at our feet – quarters, nickels, dimes, pennies – mountainous treasures to my 4-year- old daughter, Bee. “I am ready to spend it, Mom,” she
So, if you were to come to my house for a cup of tea, I’d apologize and say I don’t carry the stuff, not at the moment. Coffee? I’d offer, and pull out a cold brew from the fridge. You’d find me wearing an old pair of men’s boxer briefs, no bra, yesterday’s hair. I’d
“I am what I am. To look for reasons is besides the point.” Joan Didion wrote this. — Still, we find ourselves continually looking for reasons. We search and peer and squint, pointing our finger at just one more circumstance, one more habit, one more practice that we could – should? – change in order
A journal entry from last month: I’ve felt oh so brain-dead lately. There will be bouts of lucidness, sure, but mostly, I’m over here puttering around the sink, taking out the trash, avoiding cooking, thinking of 500 more ways I can justify breakfast-for-dinner again. What is it? I’m not sure. It’s just a little cloudy
As a kid, I faithfully attended summer camp year after year. My friends and I’d pile into a 10 passenger van with a reluctant youth leader behind the wheel, all of us belting songs in a decidedly off-key loop: Alice the Camel, Do Your Ears Hang Low. We’d pass Pringles from the back to the