The Uninvited Guests
What a time! We are seeing and hearing wide ranging effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on, it seems, every populated part of our planet. In our corner of the world, Bink’s autism and accompanying dependence on schedules has collided headfirst with current realities. Every activity in her life, from her weekday program to her favored […]
Brown Girl Hair Has Left the Building
Bink loves girl hair. For the uninitiated, this translates to long straight hair hanging down, on a female of any age. Preferably, the hair should be visible equally on the right and left sides of her head. I’ve had long brown hair for 25 of my daughter’s 27 years. At one point, it grazed the […]
My Daughter, the Foodie
Bink loves food. In fact, her relationship with it goes far beyond what tastes good and satisfies her hunger. She loves looking at cookbooks, finding recipes on the computer, and watching cooking shows. The painting subject she selects for her weekly art class is often something edible. The paintings on our walls at home, and […]
Hearing the Ocean in a Tea Cup ( again)
The Sea, the Sea I met the Pacific in 1982, she in her blue-green majesty, and I, in perpetual denim, my words untested and eyes not yet jaded. For twelve months, hundreds of days, I lived so close I could sense her depths by the movement of fine hairs on my forearms, her salt with […]
Love is a Rendering
Love is a Rendering Telling you how I love you is like trying to find things that haven’t been said about the ocean. My hands prefer to paint it— affection, water— sweeping, striped backgrounds, turquoise and deep salient greens, silvery whites frosting every liquid peak, and there’s the sky hovering above the seas like […]
There’s no write time
BLOCKED This morning the mirrorcaught my eyes,and I locked gazewith the creature staring back at me, wondering, as I sometimes do,what would happenif I opted not to claim her. If I chose a different identitywould the mirror recognize my sovereigntyor would it keep reflecting backthis worn face,these lips closedtight against all the wordsknocking up against my clenched teeth, […]
Little Things
It was, in my home, an ordinary weekend morning. I rose before him, he before her, the felines were fed. I made three different kinds of tea, two prepared with stevia and soymilk, one with honey. It was the latter that sparked it. She who has such challenges, she who’s made such gains, she whom […]
SHE and DOE
It was a few years ago that I found myself meandering in a quaint little town in western Massachusetts, about two hours east of home. I saw the sign, which read, simply, THRIFT. As a a fervent fan of space and simplicity, I practice de-cluttering my home and […]
Mothering Outside the Lines
The Bus Stop Moms From my morning window I would watch as they huddled casually, tossed light conversation back and forth, an occasional eye towards their kids who played and laughed together, finding sticks, tracing shapes and letters in the dirt. After the big yellow bus swallowed their chattering children, the moms would often stay […]
Rocking the cosmic swirl
Rocking It comforts me to know the old couple across the street just celebrated fifty years in the same house. Fifty together years with the home they perhaps chose to be new in together, a threesome of sorts, their bodies joining brick and hardened earth settling and cracking and pressing together, adding more spackle and […]