Blog : Beautiful-Things
Living With Ian
| January 15, 2018 My brother Ian and I live in the Pacific Northwest. We have a small brick house with wooden floors and a wall of French windows, letting in plenty of light....
Ripple (repeat)
| January 8, 2018 On a rusted railroad bridge overlooking Ohio's Rocky River, I stand with my father beneath an ocean blue sky and listen to the water's murmur. My father removes his glasses and points to a large rock beside the lower bank...
The Day to Day
| December 31, 2017 Sifting the flour. Squeezing the lever once. And then waiting. For a moment, it is winter again. I take my finger and make snow angels in the little blue bowl.
Wake Up
| December 25, 2017 I cannot take my children hiking without them mentioning babcia and dziadek and how they like to hike. Did you know they are going to take me camping one day? they say. Our children have seen their grandmother for the last time although she is still alive in a living room in Queens.
Sometimes Life Is Like That
| December 18, 2017 One morning I was riding my bicycle to work in a low drizzle, and the skies opened. I was going down a hill--water streaming in my eyes, raindrops pelting my arms and face, a nonstop stream of kick-up soaking my legs--when I saw it.
How to Envy
| December 11, 2017 In Cartagena de Indias, men walk down the streets carrying birdcages instead of briefcases, always with the same yellow waif perched precariously behind bars. It's important for the bird to see the world, one man tells me, his birdcage propped on the seawall, the sea crashing against the rocks a few feet away....
Oranges
| December 4, 2017 It is a rare occasion, but I decide to eat an orange when I want to remember....
In-Betweens
| November 27, 2017 A tiny green lizard clings to a brick outside the window. It takes in the late-morning light, attempting to combat the smooth chill in the air. I watch people filtering in and out of the restaurant wearing sweaters too thick for early September in Georgia.Â
Pigeon Prayer
| November 20, 2017 Whether to call them pigeons or doves is a matter of perspective. We humans made them all one family, then deemed the white ones symbols of peace and purity, while the grey took their place in tales of plague and war....
Paris Street; Rainy Day
| November 13, 2017 Back then, a woman of 17 could marry a man of 37 and the men would say, good for you, old chum, what a waist she's got, and the women would say, good for you, lucky duck, what lovely diamonds.
Lick Creek
| November 6, 2017 My niece Charli, eight years old, is crouched in the creek, peering into the sunlit shallows, her face and arms and loose gold curls spangled with light. Around her, the shaggy green woods are alive and trembling...
Soft Spot
| October 30, 2017 A few weeks into my second son's infancy, I've noticed that when the lighting and angle are perfect, I can see his pulse on top of his head, at the place where the bones haven't yet fused....
Signs
| October 23, 2017 In the final week of my mother's life, a duck and her ducklings traveled by her bedroom window in a wobbly caravan, declining in number with each daily pass. (The cats, I suspect: ruthless.)...
Did You Notice Me?
| October 16, 2017 Aunt Beverly was not my aunt at all. She was the family hairdresser and a friend of my mother's. She believed in God, but her allegiance was firstly to those around her...
Mentor of Cool
| October 9, 2017 There were Beatniks and wannabes like me in 1959 Portland coffeehouses. We sipped espressos and listened to cool jazz, whatever that was. Too young and inexperienced to distinguish authentic from pretentious, I tried, impossibly, to be cool.
The Lesson
| October 2, 2017 Only after the starter gun's snap, did my father burst from the port-a-potty...
Grateful
| September 25, 2017 My boyfriend's Grandad is ninety-one. I met him after dementia had wrested his control of the family business and emptied his mind of vocabulary...
Mountains (repeat)
| September 18, 2017 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...
Filling Cupboards
| September 11, 2017 You don't start out with coffee cups. You start with single-serve espressos and chai lattes at the coffee shop around the corner from your co-op. But a coffee together after work becomes morning coffee for two. And, suddenly, you've moved in together and have cupboards to fill....
Essay for My Five-Year-Old Daughter
| September 4, 2017 You wanted me to find you. So I interrogated the avocado tree, searched behind the broken Virgin Mary statue. Finally, I asked the sky for help...
River
| August 28, 2017 It's after the intersection and just over the very small incline that the river first comes into view. The Boston skyline expands to my right, casting its shadow on the water.
Eavesdropping In Arizona
| August 14, 2017 "When you hear this language, you hear heaven," the bishop says. Smoldering frankincense snakes its way upward as the golden censer sways, riding the waves of chants sung from memory, from the marrow.
Night Song
| August 7, 2017 At the end of a raw, rainy day, I sit cross-legged in meditation on my bedroom floor, breathing in, breathing out, letting worry and weight dissolve into diminishing light.
The Museum of Broken Relationships (repeat)
| July 31, 2017 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 a war camp.
Here's What Happens (repeat)
| July 24, 2017 HERE'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU'RE WAITING FOR MORE TEST RESULTS FOR THE SUSPICIOUS SHADOW ON YOUR HUSBAND'S CHEST X-RAY:
Holy, Holy, Holy
| July 17, 2017 On the morning after my mother's sudden death, before I was up, someone brought a basket of muffins, good coffee beans, and a bottle of cream-- real cream, unwhipped-- left them at the back door, and tiptoed away. I couldn't eat.
Reincarnation
| July 3, 2017 A radio interviewer asks an aging mystic, "What will you miss the most when you leave this world?"
Suspension
| June 26, 2017 We paddle to our campsite under blue skies, glancing at the horizon. Thunderheads boil upward from three directions.
