I say goodbye a lot. It’s one of my least favorite things to do–always has been. I moved schools a lot when I was a kid and I would avoid the active work of saying goodbye as often as possible–making jokes to diffuse the situation or skipping the last day of school. Even now, I’ll…
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I woke this morning to two things: 1. An article in the NYT about 4 Palestinian boys killed at the beach. The oldest was 11 or 12 and had sent his 8 year old brother home, because it was “too dangerous.” In the interview with the reporter the 8 year old child said, “He was…
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These past few days, I was welcomed in to witness a life completely unlike my own. A life where rattlesnakes are an ordinary concern, where the tap of hummingbirds against the rafters and fingers transcribing art through the keyboard are expected each morning. Often I forgot I was out of my element, in a place…
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This weekend began with a thunderstorm just after I returned from work. Rain fell in sheets over everything and I remembered the monsoon in Bangladesh viscerally–something flowed brighter in me. Out on my balcony, the potted Spider Lily, a descendent from my great-grandmother’s garden in Dhaka stood against the rail, unbowed against the falling water.…
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Last Friday, at the Look At Me opening at Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, ten veterans read their writing in front of an audience of 75. No two stories were the same–and yet all of the stories were familiar in some way. By naming their specific experiences of the world, they challenged any external…
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Community is the coming together of individuals “who have learned how to communicate honestly with each other, whose relationships go deeper than their masks of composure, and who have developed some significant commitment to rejoice together, mourn together and to delight in each other and make others’ conditions our own.” If I have used this…
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The Blog Tour is here! Thanks to Mary Craig for inviting me on this little adventure. Writing can be an isolating endeavor and this is a nice way around that. I met Mary during one of the most pivotal times in my life. I had gone to the Writers at Work Conference in Alta, Utah–knowing…
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I spent the weekend seeking out normal–an elusive concept I had proudly let go of. I watched movies I’ve watched before (that’s right, I watched movies), I roasted a chicken, sat by the pool. Last week was the sort that knocks everything askew–it was as if the tripod my worldview balances on lost a screw…
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This week when I mentioned my father’s upcoming 3 year death anniversary, my therapist (that’s right, I’m not only the president if the Tell-Your-Therapist Club, I’m a client) asked me if it feels any different–any easier–this year. I wanted to say yes. I almost did say yes. But rule #1 in The Club is: Don’t…
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“There were no particular questions that I asked myself: there were no special objects upon which I directed my mind: there was only a formless and aimless intellectual disturbance, as if I were wrestling with a fog. I know now that this is what always happens when I am in the early stages of…
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