She'd shake me awake in the dark. Not bothering to shower, I'd twist my hair into a bun and follow her to the car. The women in my mother's family all worked in some kind of nursing capacity. They also share a painful legacy of miscarriages. My initial aversion to bodily fluids and human…Read more More
memoir
Tidings
Perception, access, resources and ability largely determine the way we approach accountability, healing and change. Initially when my mother and stepfather told us we were moving to a 20 mile long floating land mass in the middle of a giant puddle known as the Atlantic, we wailed in protest. I was tired of unpacking…Read more Tidings
Lionitis
“I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.” -Georgia O'Keeffe Good, bad or otherwise there was no time for fear growing up in my family. Poverty doesn't give you the space to pause; maybe that's true for…Read more Lionitis
Shutter
We broke into pieces slowly, like an uncovered cake drying out for weeks on a counter. I'd say the crumbling began after he'd admitted to starting the fire in our apartment. It took a while to accept it as truth given the erosion of safety I'd been avoiding most of my adult life. I'd been brave enough to examine…Read more Shutter
The Weight
He was never tasked with picking us up from anywhere and truthfully I don't remember if on this occasion, we were coming or going. What I do recall was, he couldn't see the road. Katie and Reid were oblivious in the back seat of the Isuzu looking small, bright and cute. Katie was wearing a…Read more The Weight
Love is.
Yesterday I bumped into some old writing; several thousand words chronicling the death of a decade which now looks like a worn out towel in my memory. It made me question love; why we need it, how to go about it, what it's for, why bother the risks. Last night I dreamt about an…Read more Love is.
W.A.I.T
When the sun's in your eyes sometimes you're blinded, so it'd make sense to wait until your sight returns before doing anything. In the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer his mentor says "don't move until you see it". He was teaching him to see each match in its entirety before making a move as part of…Read more W.A.I.T
The Perfect Storm
To get out of the projects, my parents moved us into a partially condemned apartment building with faulty electricity and no running hot water. It was a relief and discomfort at the same time; you a lose a network, a sense of rank and familiarity when you go someplace new. I could anticipate the violence…Read more The Perfect Storm
