"A no good, very bad day." It's a phrase from a children's book I distantly remember, and I whisper the main theme to myself as I mop an entire glass of spilled water from the bathroom counter. I knocked the glass over by leaning in close to the mirror to find my left contact, which… Continue reading My Own Picturebook
Tag: spiritual growing pains
Blackberry Murder
My counter-top looks like I’ve committed a crime against blackberries. Juice glistens, covering the bag I carried them in, the bag underneath the bag I carried them in, the sifter I used to wash and drain them, the smooth counter, several paper towels and most unfortunately among them all, the edges of a tall stack… Continue reading Blackberry Murder
What I left uneaten at my table
(A collection of starts gathering dust. I often think I will come back to pieces when I leave them partly written. Here are three examples to the contrary.) 1. It's loud in here today, I text K. She knows that I am not speaking of the white noise of an office background going about a… Continue reading What I left uneaten at my table
When You Took Your Life; Aftermath
Soon, it will have been three years since you died by suicide. Three years since the day I sat in my car outside your place with my cellphone pressed to my ear, requesting a welfare check from the non-emergency police line. It was a Friday and you hadn’t shown up to work. Your car was… Continue reading When You Took Your Life; Aftermath
Voided/Rewritten
“I feel like a fraud” I desperately say, caught in a web of fear. New loss, old loss, future loss - all weaved together, I am centered in it. “I talk about hope and joy one day, then to be on the verge of complete panic attacks the next day? I feel crazy and like… Continue reading Voided/Rewritten
Combustion, Combat
My stomach has been tight with fear today. It's been building all week, a fire slowly being stoked right underneath my chest cavity. I've tried to ignore it, but fear has a sneaky way of slipping through the cracks. I have learned over the past years that pretending my house isn't on fire doesn't keep… Continue reading Combustion, Combat
The Eye of the Earth is Forever
Every moment we have is temporary. There is something wired in us to believe in the infinite - (an ever expanding universe, the gods of our ancestors, souls of the departed) and that seeps into the minutes of our days and nights. But nothing is actually guaranteed. This time next year, things will be different.… Continue reading The Eye of the Earth is Forever
Comfort Comes From American Eagle, Size Small
(Originally written on December 12, 2018) It is a hot day in the middle of summer, and I am finally getting around to an errand I've been meaning to do for a couple of months now. Small bells jingle as I walk into the dry cleaners. "Just the one item today, please" I say, setting… Continue reading Comfort Comes From American Eagle, Size Small
Weapons & Gifts
I am pulling old Christmas decorations out of storage, boxes that haven't been moved since the moment they were placed there seven - or is it nine - years ago when we first moved to these apartments. My sense of time is iffy at best and I never quite know what events fall where on… Continue reading Weapons & Gifts
The Breaking
(Originally written August 17, 2017) It rained for a week after Caryn died. Memory is a funny thing and can easily be manipulated to suit the stories that we want to tell, so maybe I am wrong, but I remember it as a soft rain, the kind of rain that you can stand under and… Continue reading The Breaking
Now We Are Beginning 