Blog : Beautiful-Things
Water
| September 19, 2016 Many days I set a thermos of jasmine tea beside me on my desk. Jasmine tea is mostly water, perfumed by flowers. My thermos is stainless steel with metallic green paint and says L.L. Bean on one side...
When Students Cry
| September 12, 2016 I know I shouldn't hug them, but I can't seem to stop, though I'm sure HR would advise it. I'd like to stop their crying as well, but that's even less tractable. Like the girl last fall who came to my 8:00 class wearing loose shirts and, after arriving late one day, told me she was pregnant.
Mars and a Reflection of Mars
| September 5, 2016 "There are two red planets tonight," I say. And you reply, "What a brave universe". And I feel brave. Two 30-lb packs hang near the tent we pitched just before it got dark enough to need headlamps. It's Night One of this backpacking trip...
Don Isidro
| August 29, 2016 In the lean years after WWII, soda bottles were our treasure, the two to five cent refund mine and my brother's only income for anything beyond the necessities our parents provided.
Brake Lights
| August 22, 2016 On Sundays my father's red brake lights flashed ahead of me as he held a newspaper out the window of his car. I took his hand-off and ran to the next house where the heavy editions of the Philadelphia Inquirer thudded onto the steps of porches...
Lightening Up
| August 1, 2016 My brother and I grab hold of dangling metal chains fastened to schoolyard swings in this expanse of crabgrass, red dirt, goalposts, and hard bleachers...
Candy Thief
| July 25, 2016 Rounding the corner with grocery basket in-hand, I spot my father staring at a display of candy. At a distance, I watch as he grabs candy bars off the shelf and slides them inside his coat, so absorbed in the act of stealing, he doesn't notice me approach. I tap him on the shoulder and he turns. Startled, he begins to empty his pockets.
Art Lesson
| July 18, 2016 They saved it for Fridays. Every teacher had the same projects. Fall: iron leaves between waxed paper. Winter: chalk snow scenes on black construction paper. Spring: draw daffodils. Except for Miss Malik...
Apparent Magnitude: Negative 28, Brighter Than the Sun
| July 11, 2016 We're in church and the minister is reading a story about Maria Mitchell, America's first female astronomer, when my son whispers, "When I grow up, if there's a planet left that nobody has been to, I'm going to be the first person to step on it."
Galaxies
| July 4, 2016 Say that this space on her forehead where you smooth tangled tresses to plant a kiss once, perhaps twice for good measure, smells like daisies, grassy and warm...
Tornado
| June 27, 2016 When I was a little girl, younger than you are now, I shared a bedroom with Aunt Catherine, who was still a baby. Grandpa was gone on business ...
All Our Travels
| June 20, 2016 Once we're in the air Dale tells me he is retired military--he graduated high school the same year I did. Beside him Beth is from Boise--she once broke down near Bentonville, where my best friend now lives. Small world, we say, when we uncover these coincidences, but what we really mean is that we feel small in it...
On the Last Day of Our Friendship
| June 13, 2016 We take shifts now. I arrive just as your mom is leaving. I want to hug you but you are bird bones, and I am a dinosaur, big and clumsy, breathing all over everything, and loudly healthy.
Hubby
| June 6, 2016 It wasn't a nickname. It was her real, actual name. She'd been Hubby for eighty-three years...
Graffiti the Walls
| May 30, 2016 I want to graffiti the walls where my grandmother lives, white and sterile walls (egg-shell colored walls, as the nurses say), replace her sanitation lists with photographs, magazine spreads and paper clippings...
T-Shirts
| May 23, 2016 A stack of t-shirts sits on my bureau: white, pale blue, yellow. The soft, bright colors of summer.
Ascension Garden
| May 9, 2016 The first time, you drive by yourself. You have some idea you are going there, but are still surprised that you know the way, without her, through the turning and turning driveways...
Merriment
| May 2, 2016 I was walking to the store with my brother when we stumbled upon a father teaching his daughter to ride a bike. He was in his early thirties, the age my father must have been when he left us...
The Museum of Broken Relationships
| April 25, 2016 There's this letter on the wall in there that a young boy writes to a young girl during the Bosnian War. They meet at gunpoint, marching toward a van that will drive them to...
Dandelion
| April 18, 2016 A short and seasonal classic from the original 28 days of Beautiful Things, originally posted on February 21, 2014.
Concrete Hands
| April 11, 2016 The day the crumbling front steps of our house on 2 Baldwin Road were to be torn down and replaced, my mother gave me what seemed like the most incredible and unearned gift.
Brothers
| April 4, 2016 They hold hands when watching something new or big or frightening: waves rolling across the beach, fireworks, the part of the movie where Piglet can't find his friends.
Somniloquy
| March 28, 2016 Trained by his body to wake now every two hours, he doesn't much need her voice to tell him it's time for more meds. So at first, when he stirs from his makeshift bed on their floor, he thinks she's talking to him.
Mountains
| March 21, 2016 It is always almost raining. That's something they never tell you about Seattle; they talk about the rain, but not the days the air holds its breath.
Safety Popcorn
| March 14, 2016 When I was a young child, once a week and sometimes more, my father cooked homemade popcorn in the WhirleyPop then seasoned it with garlic powder, Parmesan cheese, and sea salt. He divided it into two separate bowls -- one big blue bowl and another white square bowl with red stripes, a gift from his mother.
Sneakers in Sand
| February 29, 2016 The baby's shoes were nowhere. That morning was spent in the chaotic swirl of cleaning and packing the vacation house. Countertops lined with coffee cups, milky-bottomed cereal bowls, last laundry loads, shouts up the staircase, don’t forget the shampoo in the shower! It was New Year’s Eve. We had a flight to catch.
My Father's Only Recipe
| February 22, 2016 First, take pork spare ribs. Hack them up with an impossibly large cleaver into bite-sized pieces. Rub them with a proprietary mix of star anise, black beans, garlic, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, ginger, and secrets. Never ask him what happened in Taiwan, or why his mother never spoke the name of her former husband again.
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art lesson (1)
ascension garden (1)
beautiful things (141)
brothers (1)
candy (1)
concrete hands (1)
family (1)
galaxies (1)
hubby (1)
lightening up (1)
merriment (1)
mountains (1)
nature (2)
relationships (1)
somniloquy (1)
t-shirts (1)
teaching (1)
water (1)
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