“Who was it?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know if I ever knew.” A ceramic Christmas tree sat on my bookshelf. I’d just switched it on, and its multi-colored lights glowed. That little tree had been part of Christmastime as far back into my childhood as I could remember. It wasn’t... Continue Reading →
In the Wake of Pain and the Gold of Care
“How’s your back doing?" my father would ask with a hope-you’re-okay smile from across the dinner table. He struggled to remember many things during the last years of his life, but he remembered that my back was hurting. Perhaps he worried, knowing at his age how pain can accumulate and weigh us down. I felt... Continue Reading →
What to Do with Too Much to Do
What do you do with too much to do? I remember carrying that question around in my head for quite a while before, one day, a classmate of mine asked our professor how to find her own voice in the writing assignments we did for class. By way of an answer, the professor asked another... Continue Reading →
Handling the Holes Created by Loss
I’ve never worked in kintsugi gold, but I’ve begun enjoying the other kinds of repairs that I do manage to do. Repairs feel like a form of care for the things that go with me through my days. On the bookshelf, a Joy of Cooking cookbook I inherited from my grandmother has its cracked spine reinforced with... Continue Reading →
Beneath the Loss
Does the vividness of memory ever surprise you? It does me. I remember a day as a student when I joined some classmates in waving scarves of every color as we danced barefoot down the grey, marble-floored hallways of our seminary. A drummer walked with us, and a group of people followed. I think it... Continue Reading →
