Of Sex and Cheesecake
He mentioned it casually while he was lacing up his shoes on a red hallway rug, and I can’t remember how it came up. “Why doesn’t the Church talk more about sex, Mom?” My twenty-one year old had to leave for work so our conversation was short. “Well, your dad and I do, and our…
For When You Don’t Feel Like You Fit and You Just Want to See the Cover
A cement mixer rumbles and churns on white-washed sidewalk. Grey rivulets swirl silver along the gutter. I step off the sidewalk, afraid of falling stone, and sidle beside trucks and cars parked out from the two-story metal scaffolding and men in hard hats, until I reach Spyhouse Coffee’s entrance. Photo Credit: Flickr user Neil Moralee,…
This is When It Strikes You Most
In the whispering crack of my door opening, I wake and feel him tiptoe near. “Mom?” he asks and I know. “I’ll be right there.” Photo Credit: Flickr user Daniel Gies, Creative Commons, cc license He pads away, hands out to navigate the dark room and hallway. I hear his door open and shut across…
How Your Voice Translates Across Chords and Courtyards
Twenty of us scraped chairs on shiny wooden floors then settled legs still. My paper plate sagged with food: a tangy key lime cheesecake slice with frothy whipped cream lay next to a smooth plain cheesecake piece topped with blueberry crisp. Sweet corn and pepper cowboy caviar salsa slid juices across the plate and soaked…
The Woman in the Woods
Like an M. Night Shyamalan film, the title emerges: The Woman in the Woods. Photo Credit: Flckr user Nick Kenrick, Creative Commons cc license At her wooden desk layered with papers and folders, Morgan studies criss-crossed characters of Mandarin Chinese. In isolated pieces called radicals, she sees the term for female, and other radicals multiply…
When You Find Yourself Red-Faced and Hot at the Woodfire
In between sticky smores, sandy swimsuits, and splashes in the crisp Mississippi River headwaters, it washed off: the weight of everyday life. Hamburger hobo stews wrapped in tin foil oozed steaming carrot and potato juices. We smelled of wood fires and mosquito repellent. Hiking through bogs on wooden boardwalks, slapping mosquitoes, hypothesizing which “leaves of…
Grab Your Ugly Socks!
With a clatter and a crash, the phone slipped off the treadmill dashboard, careened off the moving belt, and skidded to a stop in the carpet behind me. I glanced left and right. Lithe joggers ran in precise form, their arms knowing how to cycle in smooth arcs, not flailing wildly like mine. Photo Credit:…
When Grief Stalks
Cinnamon coffeecake plunges high up my plastic fork while brown sugar topping flakes and tumbles from the top. Espresso grinders whir loud then fade to the music from overhead speakers. Three inch pink baby shoes glide by in a black stroller; purple sippy handles peak from a stroller’s corner. Wooden coffeehouse chairs scrape and clunk…
When You Just Want to DO Something!
He’s leaning over the table, mouth open in concentration. Two stacks of soft white socks brush his elbow as he reaches over them. “Look!” he exclaims, proudly wriggling the toilet paper roll down into the gallon ziplock bag. Two water bottles stand erect beside it. He pauses and I slide two folded pieces of paper…
In the Muggy Nights after a Month of Headlines
I remember it, how the air was hot even though it was September 2007 and how Mark had crossed the stage, his shoulders carrying the pain. Photo Credit: Flickr user Mick Baker Rooster, Creative Commons, cc license Photo Credit: Flickr user David, Creative Commons, cc license His voice softer than normal, he had smiled at…