It all began with the hummingbirds, sir.
Yes, Mr. Grant, I’m serious. I awoke in plenty of time to get to work by 8:30, but as I got out of bed, I heard a noise outside and peered out my window.
No, not my boyfriend’s window. I was home. I have a hummingbird feeder located right outside my bedroom window, and the hummers come every early morning and then at dusk.
I’m trying to tell you what this has to do with the fact that I was two hours late, sir, I am getting to the story.
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Juliana knew exactly who she was as early as kindergarten.
“You’re so smart!” her teacher said because she could read her ABC’s not only forwards, but backwards.
By sixth grade Juliana was the “school genius.” After she completed an IQ test, the results were given to her parents in whispered joy by the principal, with Juliana sitting right there. No one ever told her the results, but her parents’ faces shone like the sun. Continue reading
“The writing class dug out my neuroses in 30 minutes,” Susie claimed.
Her therapist nodded, eyebrows raised.
“I mean, I’ve been seeing you for five months and all you say to me is ‘how does that make you feel?’” Susie continued, pushing her bangs away from her eyes. “Yet in the class I attended on a whim, I discovered things I never knew about myself!” Continue reading
Sightseers into Pilgrims, by Evangeline Paterson
I used to think --
loving life so greatly --
that to die would be
like leaving a party
before the end.
Now I know that the party
is really happening
somewhere else;
that the light and the music --
escaping in snatches
to make the pulse beat
and the tempo quicken --
come from a long way
away.
And I know too
that when I get there
the music will never
end.
Cereal and blueberries. That’s what I should have for breakfast this morning. But as I stare at the quart of blueberries sitting in my refrigerator’s fruit drawer, I change my mind.
Two months ago my mom died. Yet, it seems like she’s still alive, and like she left years ago. In fact, I wasn’t able to mourn her for the six years she suffered from dementia, but since she’s died, I’ve celebrated her vitality and misdeeds and shenanigans and mostly, her love for her family, in big and small ways. Continue reading
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