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Ducks
It started with the ducks in the pool. Not real ones. Well, sometimes real ones. But mostly it was that I began seeing ducks everywhere, all at once, in a way that went past coincidence and started to feel like something. A duck floating in our swimming pool one morning. A duck at the store,…
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French Manicure
I only get French manicures. Soft pink, white tips, nothing loud. I’ve done it that way for as long as I can remember, and if you asked me why, I’d probably tell you it’s just what I like, that it’s classic, that it goes with everything. And that’s true, as far as it goes. When…
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Handled
My son felt he was given too much responsibility as a kid. That he had to watch his sisters, that too much was put on him too young. When I found out, I wasn’t angry the way I might have expected to be. I was blindsided. Because the whole time, I thought I had it…
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All the Things
I was raised Protestant, more by my grandmother than anyone. She was the religious one. She’d teach me Bible verses and then have me recite them for her church friends, this little girl standing in front of grown-ups, delivering scripture from memory. I can still feel what that was like, the wanting to get it…
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What They Wanted Me to Do
By the time we got engaged, I was already trying to find my way out. I didn’t intend to go through with it. I could see him clearly enough by then, the controlling streak, the way the temperature of a room changed around him, and something in me knew. But we were already living together,…
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First Choice
For most of my life I have believed I’m not anyone’s first choice. I don’t say that for sympathy. I say it because it’s the quiet fact I’ve carried under all my friendships, the lens I’ve viewed them through, and I’ve only recently started to wonder if the lens itself might be wrong. Let me…
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Come Back Later
Before my son was born, my mom told me she wasn’t sure what kind of grandmother she’d be. She’d already gone over and beyond as a mother, poured absolutely everything she had into raising us, and I think she assumed being a grandmother would be more of the same, a similar dynamic, maybe with a…
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My Two Poppies
I had two grandfathers, and they were about as different as two men can be. My dad’s dad was a truck driver. His world was small and warm and complete: his chair, his miniature poodle, a cold can of beer, the ballgame coming in on the radio, a deck of cards. He didn’t need much…
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Sent Away
When I was an infant, I was sent to live with my grandparents for a while. My sister stayed home. I still don’t fully understand the reasons or the timeline, and the people who could explain it aren’t really here to ask anymore, but the fact of it has come to mean a great deal…
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Coffee and a Cat
My day starts slowly now, and I want you to know that the slowness is on purpose. I have arranged my whole life around it. I work from home as much as I possibly can, specifically so that my mornings can begin gently, without a rush, without being thrown straight from sleep into someone else’s…
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