She often naysays new adventures. Always pushing to discover precisely what’s in store. Unknown throws her off-kilter. But life is inscrutable. Most of the time. So I push her. To explore. To rest easy in the not knowing. I wonder if I’m the best teacher, myself a resister of spontaneity. But I’m in recovery from... Continue Reading →
The plane hung there, suspended far overhead, so small it required careful squinting to verify its reality. Silent. So still that it seemed to fade in and out of existence, to bend space and time itself. Clouds dissipated over the plane’s edges, blurring it into both being and nonbeing. Solidly ephemeral. The plane vanished behind... Continue Reading →
I spent my whole childhood standing around uncomfortably. Waiting for people to notice. Never asking for what I needed. Just standing. Ostensibly to avoid being a bother. But becoming more bothersome in my silence. Today, when it was my kid’s turn in line, simultaneously all adults got distracted. She froze, triggering the moments I’d been... Continue Reading →
On Twitter, a mom insisted worry should be ingrained in the return-to-school process during COVID. As if I were letting kids down by not succumbing to a vortex of worry. Worry has never manifested anything good in my life. Never changed anything. Instead, worry blocks me from wise decision making. From exploring all the options,... Continue Reading →
The first day of school is like the liquidy center of that throwback 1980s gum I always begged for as a kid. A burst of surprise on a regular weekday. Something new, a flood of possibility. Warm fluidity, everyone bound together by first day jitters and the elation of a new adventure. I can viscerally... Continue Reading →
My dad had the best reading light in the house, a 1970s silver bulbous metal shade attached to a long pole standing directly beside the brown corduroy chair constantly tilted back to a 45 degree angle so he could prop up his feet and read the newspaper after work. My 7 year old self fit... Continue Reading →
Summer descended on Atlanta. The air is thick, close, heavy. The sun shines gloriously, deceptively beautiful enough that you believe you need to shimmy into its radiance. Until you do and the heat sucks your breath right from your lungs. The reprieve of the shade soothes, though. And when a breeze deigns to grace Atlanta,... Continue Reading →
Sharp pain behind my right eye. Throbbing brain. A vortex of omnipresent pain. A doorbell chimed vaguely in the background. A customer appeared. Black. Queer. Immigrant. That trifecta, people thought, was the worst possible hand, he said. But he identified privilege in the knowledge that he could chart his own path, could see a future... Continue Reading →
Good Talk is on the Bookish 2021 Reading Challenge. And (embarrassingly) I totally discounted it as a memoir, because it’s in graphic form. Which was so short sighted. Because the art is really both understated (sketches over photos) and integral to the story she’s telling. And it’s all created by the author—which I’m totally wowed... Continue Reading →
Lined up there, those clay pots weren’t but a breath from each other. Each one its own miniature riot of color: white, pink, red. Practically vibrating with exuberance, in that late afternoon summer light caught somewhere between the ripest lemon and the tartest lime that squeezes my heart leaving just the echo of an ache.... Continue Reading →
