After they die, I crack a cold, cheap beer and comb through my belongings. I look for letters, texts, facebook comments and photographs. Listen to messages to see if maybe, somewhere along line, they’ve left me the gift of their voice. After they die, I scramble desperately for something left of them. Something tangible. Something …
There was a pair of house finches building a small nest outside our window. I’d watch them weave it all together—the female, with her muted brown feathers, working relentlessly on her art. The twigs meticulously placed, one over the next—how they intertwined with one another. The male, with his bright cherry red head and breast, …
Continue reading The House Finch
How do you talk about a sunset, without sounding like every conversation about sunsets? At the market, the checker she says, The sunset is beautiful—I love that I can watch it from this window. I say, Oh yes, the colors are stunning. Those pinks, those yellows. Then, when I get home, my mother-in-law, she says, …
The way the calls come late at night, and the way that you don’t sleep. Lie staring at the ceiling; know that you must leave town in the morning. The way you need to buy an apple pie for the drive. Let it sit upon your lap the whole way home. You don’t even like …
You want to rip your hair out, over and over again. You want to tear at it until your mind grows quiet with exhaustion. Until your scalp, with a suddenness now feeling cold and empty, grows tired. You want to cry them back to life, as if your tears have hidden power in their flowing. …
Continue reading Boys don’t cry
An aunt of mine makes quilts, for every generation of the family. When we are young, she shows us ours—the patches for each sibling. I remember being worried that my brother, newly born, did not have a square. Worried he had been forgotten in the weaving all together of a family. I watch the grown …
Continue reading Patchwork Girl
Some people, you can hear the way their heart hurts when they speak. I’ve hit a wall in this exploration of family. I think it comes from the fact of my youth. So many of their memories I can’t remember, which makes me feel like I am not deserving of their story. I am …
I remember the back of my uncle’s head. The smell of the cigarette he smokes, wafting through the window. His red neck in the driver’s seat my knees brushed up against the back. Going somewhere, as a family. I am starting to make promises to God and placing strange things that I find upon the …
The Wild Heart of Life 