Being related

I drive my mother to the airport early, and on the way home stop for straight-from-the oven croissants and scones. I get a small coffee in a paper cup with maple syrup and cream, and snatch a little solitary time at my computer, nibbling on a date scone with lemon icing. It is only a [...]

Ways of looking at the pieces

The past few days have been piled with small fragments. Tesserae. A jigsaw puzzle in a box. The deadline for the house is rapidly approaching: five weeks until our lease is up here. Five weeks to do: drywall mudding, paint, floors, kitchen, and both bathrooms. My mother is here for a visit, and seeing her [...]

The past three days by the numbers:

8 hours spent writing applications. 6 application packages sent out. 400 other applicants competing for the same positions. 1,000,000,000 units of stress about obtaining one of said positions. 1 mother visiting. 5 loads of laundry done by said mother. 1 happy grandson. 6 hours of drywalling. 1 diningroom completed. 2 black-hole hours at Home Depot. [...]

Enjoyment at random

Going over my writing from the past couple of weeks, I’m struck by how serious I’ve been. Early spring seems to do this—the last rain soaked days of quiet gray on brown silhouettes of twigs and trees before the riot of color hits. Then the blossoms arrive, heady, erotic, unreasonably beautiful, and the whole world [...]

14 month old Beansprout

I looked at the calendar this morning and couldn’t believe that you turn fourteen months today. When did that happen? I thought we were still in the BEGINNING of April! Funny how my memory has been compromised, since you hit the scene. Starting with pregnancy, certain things become involuntarily selective in my memory. Appointments were [...]