Blog : Beautiful-Things
Beginning of Spring
| March 30, 2020 The Chinese calendar had it right. Insisting that spring begins in February is to begin a season at the beginning, when the season is only just awakening, a quiet stirring.
In the Car She Drives, the Air is Always Fresh(ened)
| March 23, 2020 A cardboard pine tree of Caribbean Colada swings from the rearview mirror, the mirror in which my daughter considers whether she needs eyelash extensions, teeth whitening. Whether she needs her eyebrows threaded. Onto the vents, she's clipped mini-clothespins...
How Do They Find Me?
| March 16, 2020 My mother's greatest pleasure since her stroke is to sit in the courtyard of the rehab center. It's not a beautiful space, just a square of concrete surrounded by high walls. If she could lean her head back, she could see the sky.
The Delicacy
| March 9, 2020 The "Eight Mountain Delicacies" are among the most sought after dishes from the Imperial Banquet of 1720, but they are nearly impossible to make. Some of the more exotic ingredients, such as leopard fetuses, are unobtainable . . .
Nesting
| March 2, 2020 After the very worst winter, spring pushes back the smell of antiseptic, the taste of iron, the pain of useless milk, and fills the air with the green aroma of life once more. It draws me out again, bare feet in cool grass blades . . .
Another Workday
| February 24, 2020 "Daddy, are you going to work?" my son asks when he sees me wearing a jacket and tie before I leave for campus and a day of teaching. Years ago my father's work boots and overalls prompted the same question from me. . .
My Sister Passes Me on a Bench at the Zoo
| February 17, 2020 On a bench in the zoo a girl walks past me wearing my sister’s face—my sister’s smooth, pre-teen face, before acne, before irony, before the long humped shuffle of illness.
Picking Up Lint
| February 10, 2020 My dad was an exacting man. When he ran a motor assembly plant in Belgium, he plastered the shop floor, break rooms, and bathrooms with signs that urge-warned in Flemish, WHAT YOU DO, DO IT RIGHT! At home he was equally demanding.
Eulogy for a Dog with Sad Eyes
| February 3, 2020 You were always underfoot, in fibers of the carpet, your big shape blocking doorways and chair-paths until you decided on your own where to go. You shook when there were fireworks, you barked when we got locked out, you smiled up at the camera...
Nails
| January 27, 2020 My mother’s fingernails were sculpted and strong—not like salon nails, more like the backs of beetles. Every Saturday night she’d paint them for Mass the next day—usually deep red, her favorite color.
Atlantis
| January 20, 2020 "Because, what if they don't turn out okay?" The question, posed by my 14-year old daughter, hung in the air as we drove past the park after school late one afternoon. I was talking about motherhood, and she matter-of-factly justified her plan...
Jasmine
| January 13, 2020 He's outside, singing. On the record player, Sinatra spins. Next, it will be Pavarotti. Maybe a big-band soundtrack. Whatever the treasure, he will make a big show of dusting off and placing a needle upon before heading back to his garden.
Home to Roost
| January 6, 2020 I liked the hens, with their kind eyes and soft, red feathers. I was seven, and I wanted to sleep with them, to nestle with them, because they felt like a dozen mothers, all watching out for me.
Here. Look.
| December 30, 2019 My husband hadn't meant to render us in silhouette. He was a novice, the camera new and heavy in his hands. As we gazed out the window he didn't realize that by aiming toward it, into the sun, he'd cast us in shadow, erasing specifics.
Floodscape
| December 23, 2019 On a winter's sunny day, I can see the Minnesota River shimmering a quarter mile away--past the trail at the base of our hill, over the pond, beyond the meadow, between the walnut trees. Come spring, there is imbalance--too much snow...
Woods Cove
| December 16, 2019 My younger sister who is dead of cancer now is returning to the tide pools soon because I'm going to bring her. I'm going to put her back, or something meaning her, which is a palmful of calcium phosphate and sodium, powdery ash...
It Happened in Brooklyn
| December 9, 2019 They fell in love back when Brooklyn had trolley cards. He taped her photograph to the inside of his military locker. When the war ended...
Stray
| December 2, 2019 She was over dogs when one appeared by their table at a beachside cafe. Strays roamed everywhere in Nosara, breedless, leashless wonders. This one had some pit bull and Corgi. Her husband thought hound. Pointy ears, long snout...
Offering
| November 25, 2019 Just twelve people. People I didn’t know from Adam. I could have refused. Could've shaken my head and deferred to any one of them. Inside me, I felt a squeezing in my chest.
Home
| November 18, 2019 It was just a gray concrete shell, wrapped with chain link fence. A dream home, unfinished, left to sun, dust, and rain. Around it, pastel mansions with swimming pools, iron gates, and razor wire.
A Loss for Words
| November 11, 2019 This Chinese bowl, smooth in my hands, white as bone, entwined with blue dragons, reminds me of my friend Joyce's mom. Faizai she'd christened me. Fatso. (The Cantonese more affectionate than its English equivalent.)
Weight of Bones
| November 4, 2019 A loon is not crazy for spending more time in the water than in the air, though the other birds may think so. He is made for it. Unlike his feathered brethren, his bones are solid. He relies on their weight to defy the buoyancy of water...
Collision
| October 28, 2019 I have questions: What would cold steel feel like on the back of my skull? How many bones would shatter? Where would I land?
Beach Day
| October 21, 2019 Blue skies, blazing sun, of course. But honestly, it was a perfect day for fleeing steaming city streets, freezing corporate offices, our apartment, where a stuffed hippo and a crocheted blanket menaced. Everything had changed.
Scent's Memory
| October 14, 2019 "What's the word where it reminds you of a long time ago?" I'm trying to get us out of the house and I know I sound impatient when I respond. "Nostalgia?" "Yeah," he says, "I love that smell."
Clementine Time
| October 7, 2019 There is no time but the time in the kitchen. My father loses track of days, and I buy a "clock" whose only hand moves from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday, as if distinguishing between the days were important.
Simplify, Simplify
| September 30, 2019 This could be the morning I slide out the door instead of back under sheets and escape before I drink my coffee. My arms unburdened, no one calling me back, no shame or remorse to shadow my escape. Away.
Chosen for Something
| September 23, 2019 Sometimes as a child I would brush my grandfather's thinning hair. He was a long haul trucker turned Pentecostal preacher who mostly showed affection through prayer and cash money, both of which he handed out at random to his grandkids.
Footfalls
| September 16, 2019 On the plane home, out the window, all I see is empty sky. As a girl, when talk of dying arose, I always gazed up to where I am now, drifting past the tops of snowy clouds.
Sneakers in Sand (repeat)
| September 9, 2019 The baby's shoes were nowhere. That morning was spent in the chaotic swirl of cleaning and packing the vacation house
