If I’d died that day, the mourning would have faded by now, the sharp edge of memories dulled and bearable. Tears dried save the occasional season, or place, or song. And the lives with which I was once so undeniably intertwined would be moving on. New days and different ways would be well on their…
My Aunt Hannah used to pack my lunch in a full-size brown grocery bag with an extra banana, “just in case.” Hannah wore house dresses, smoked like a chimney, and now that I’m older, I suspect she might have washed her prescriptions down with the occasional “nip.” I don’t care. I’m not looking for a…
If I were a man, I wouldn’t lie. I might let little ones slip here and there, but not the big ones. The big lies change everything; they cause irreparable damage. I’d know that. As a man, I would take responsibility for my actions, even if, along the way, I had become someone who mocked…
When I was sixteen, I went to Tower Records and asked if I could have this giant promo poster for the new Smiths album once the store took it down to make way for the next new releases. That was a thing back then. They gave them away on a first-ask basis. Anyway, I got…
Thirty years ago, on January 9th of this year, I thought I had plenty of time to get the car washed. It was an important day, and I wanted a clean car, but we all know time stops at the car wash, and I was nearly late for my wedding. Michael, who should have gotten the…
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.…
My mom moved us from New York to Arizona the summer I turned eleven. When the plane landed, and 105 degrees of hell hit my face, I vowed to leave the state as soon as I was an adult and could make my own life. I left for college at eighteen and lived in Arizona…
“Focus on small things like making tea. Be grateful and break things down to the tiniest piece until you can find good.” That was my response when my youngest, distraught by news and the world, asked me the point of life. Not an easy question at any age, but she wanted to know how I…
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…
