When my grandpa died, soon after my grandma, I drove up north with my husband, Thinking about an ice cream shop Where children sat and ordered real sodas That melted sticky sickly-sweet with ice cream. Of antique shops with names like Carousel, Matched by charming interiors. Or the flea market Only open on weekends, But I had all the…
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Reworking Projects Helps You See Your Growth
I rarely rework projects. I revisit stories I wrote and enjoyed in my youth and write about them again, but that’s more out of a desire to go into those worlds than to see how much I’ve improved. Many creative types make Then/Now posts, but I was neglecting to do the same. I was doing myself a disservice. I was feeling…
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Adoption, and What Makes a Family
Originally published on my website on February 27th, 2019. You can find the original version here. I happened to read over it and realized I could do better; my writing has improved enough that I feel this deserved another go. I also felt the original was very defensive, and off-putting as a result. One of the most enduring testaments…
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A Hole in the Ice
And when I leave you, It won’t be the gradual chill of winter mornings Found in the beginning of the season, When berries hang fat and red on their stems And birds puff up their feathers, Like old men hunched down in woolen scarves and mittens Lovingly made by old women. It will be a plunge into icy water, …
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You’ll Get There
I was speaking to a friend and fellow writer, and they were confiding in me their frustration. An acquaintance of theirs had had their website featured on a large Facebook page, and as a result, the popularity of their website was booming. “I love writing and do it nearly every day. This person made their site on a whim…
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Words Can Save You
“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.” -Anne Dillard I could begin this post by telling you how my mom read to me as a child, or my favorite books that I remember best from the early-dawn years of my life. Instead, I will tell you that there’s no one certain date I can…
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Switch
I could circle you, ravenous, and take you as my prey, But I would rather roll onto my back gentle as clouds and let you have me under that watching blue sky. Control is an illusion but I keep reaching for it, Perhaps I’ve been waiting for the caress of words; the intoxicating loss of control. The muse imprisoned,…
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MeMe
I hadn’t been able to write lately. I hadn’t been sleeping well, I wasn’t able to concentrate. I felt like I was trying to get to the surface, but it was dark and mud coated my mouth. I didn’t know how to say what’s been going on in my head. I don’t know how to write about things like…
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Fever Dreaming
It struck fast, when it did. I went to bed after what I assumed was a coughing fit brought on by the temperature changes (it happens sometimes; my asthmatic lungs are fickle) and woke up with chills and body aches. It’s been a rough few weeks around here. We have all been hit hard with the flu. And, in…
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Do They See You?
It’s no secret that I am a bibliophile, for which my husband has always been supportive, but he isn’t the type to buy books as gifts. That changed this past Christmas. He picked out the book pictured above: it details various Tarot card meanings, and ties those meanings into tips to increase creativity. Mike isn’t a reader. He isn’t…
