How much more life will I live before it’s time to change the head on my electric toothbrush again? Time is visceral these days. I’m parsing out my life in an effort to make a day, a month, a year meaningful. Life-affirming. I like to think things are not just slipping by for me. No.…
This boat sits in the marina by my home. I walk by three times a day with Jack. At night, the warm light within makes it special. A man sits at the small table inside and works on a large wooden boat model. Jack and I slow to glance over every evening. The man sits…
A couple of weeks ago, I was exiting the parking garage of my apartment. It was morning, and while I waited to pull forward, I glanced toward the promenade that encircles the marina. It was breezy, the mist seemingly waking up and rolling about too. A woman stood a few feet from me with a…
If I were turning ten at the end of the month, this would be about stickers. It would be short and sweet because I neither loved to read nor kept a journal when I was ten. I was a talker at ten. If I were turning twenty at the end of the month, this would…
My first car was a yellow 1973 AMC Gremlin with wood paneling and a bad Kmart stereo. My new car is a 2019 Yellow Jeep Wrangler with leather seats and CarPlay. My Gremlin used to backfire and eventually caught on fire. My Jeep can drive over anything and texts me when I need to change…
Broken girls become warriors. That was the quote on Pinterest. I’ve seen it before. I don’t know who wrote it. I’m sure several incarnations have been written dozens of times but reading it this morning set me off. Why the hell do we keep doing this? It seems the space between complicated issue and bumper…
Things are far better today than they were years ago. Today’s music is just as good, if not better than, The Stones, Bob Dylan, and Elvis. The benefits of technology far outway the blown-out-of-proportion drawbacks. Netflix and Bitmojis are like glitter. Not necessary, but kind of fun. Today’s children believe respect is earned. The…
Helen, Gertrude, Millie, and Alice. Those are good names. They smoke, no filter, and smush out their charred nubs in a beanbag ashtray before reaching for another Entenmann’s cookie. They are all in housedresses, and they get their hair done at the same beauty parlor. I picture the remaining eggs in my body as these…
I have this theory that age sinks in once we stop seeking challenges. Hopping out of a new bed, climbing a tree, learning to read, taking off the training wheels, making it into the toilet, standing tall at a new school. These are only a few in a sea of challenges children face as they…