I am the new girl. And while this is not a novel circumstance, everything in me wants to scamper back to where I came from, to the place where I was safely sheltered in the concrete corners of urban streets cradled gently in the hammock of amiable familiarity and immaculate anonymity. I have been uprooted and…
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I am afraid of snakes but it isn’t quite that elementary. Were my consternation solely focused on elongated limbless reptiles, life would be far less complicated. Sadly, however, there are spiders, in whom every unknown terror in the world is fused into wriggling, poison-jawed horror, and menacing sea creatures who roam the depths of ocean…
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I have the soul of a wanderer I suppose. My heart is keenly convinced that wonder does not live in cold, predictable and tidy. It is almost as if nostalgia for me is forward facing. I recognize it as the strange longing for that which has yet to be explored. I have often pondered the…
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For the adolescents in my nest everything seems too big. There is no context or perspective, only borderless heartache and unrestrained delight. Through the lens of midlife, I understand fully that experience will eventually come to their rescue, but for now there are only extremes. I have experienced undeniable seasons of both wildness and settledness,…
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There are holes in my walls, rounded fist sized holes, not an easy admission for one who so owns the preference of order and perfection. I can recall in those burgeoning first weeks of motherhood, being so off put by the absolute chaos created by the nine pound cherub who had wrenched from my hands…
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I have been described as “emotional and reactive”. This label, meant to advise those with whom I would interact of my inconvenient heart, actually served as the catalyst for stunning personal growth and development. Although I initially took issue with this assessment, the feedback allowed for an intimate self-examination of an introspective soul fraught with…
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While I welcome the advent of a New Year, the platitudes and clichés that mark its passing feel stunted and silly. The opportunity to pause and ponder is of great value to me, inviting the deep and introspective examination of who I am and where I am at, but if I am to be completely…
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It was a peculiar day, a brooding fall afternoon rich with the subtle smell of distant winter. I recognized it instantly, unreserved and distinct, curiously appealing and acutely detestable. It was no more than a momentary and fleeting impression, but somewhere in the potpourri of scorched wood and damp leaves was a sheath of memories,…
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Life is monumentally full, and there are innumerable justifications for my neglect of pen and paper. Life is shifting and balance has been disrupted by the equally winsome and loathsome attributes of adolescence that reign unfettered in my home. My pursuit of higher education, though edifying to my soul, requires of me a focus and…
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For as long as my humanity allows for memory, I recall feeling out of step. A round peg in a square hole so to speak, gravitating to the grey in a black and white world, forged in the crucible of different. Even into early adulthood, the feeling was undefinable. There was a certain dissonance between…
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