I always hurt somewhere. That’s just how it is in this body. Pain can be so loud. Sometimes the volume is down low, barely a whisper, but sometimes it goes to eleven. I don’t get to decide. My body does it for me. Recently, for a …
Tag: nonfiction
Here’s What the River Taught Me
The unpaved road began just minutes after my GPS died. My car and I were now crawling along a single skinny lane with rolling river on one side and thick, towering forest on the other. Thankfully, I was following someone who knew the rest of the …
What Remains of Summer
If you sit outside and listen to the cicadas scream soon you’ll want to join them. It’s summer, the tail end. The hotter it gets, the louder they screech. Such sweet relief. I envy them. It’s been too long since I’ve spent an evening outside. I …
Music Is The Home Of My Dreams
Let the walls close in. Blow the roof from its rafters. Slow down the thoughts that run from the tap. Windows cracked, let the breeze kiss my skin. Shut the moon off to make my world black. Feed my hunger. Light my fire. Dress up my …
Sometimes You’ve Got To Make It All About Me
This is the second post in a series, The Other Side of Being Sick, chronicling my path to learning how to be well once again. If you missed the first post, Resolve to Reconnect, you can read it here. “Where are you going?” I would ask …
The Other Side of Mourning
I moved away from the coast almost two years ago. Sold the home that was a stone’s throw and a short bike ride from the ocean. I left the spot that hurricanes seemed most drawn to, moved far away, deep inland and still the hurricane found …
Dad, We Are Finally Free
Today is my father’s birthday. He would have been 88. He died on Independence Day a few years back. I don’t know how many years back, exactly, because my dad wasn’t the kind of guy you always wanted to remember. He was often the man I’ve …
It Happens Whenever It Happens
“She looks like the Dutch Boy. Do something.” Three sisters surrounded the fourth. I began fluffing my sister Fran’s hair with a brush in one hand and freezing the look with the hairspray held in the other. I was 16, she 28. I hadn’t the faintest …
The Jetties Aren’t Made For Yoga
The jetties are not made for yoga. Gargantuan boulders, some the size of a small car, stacked one on top of the other in impossible configurations. Rocks so large you know the stack won’t tumble, but with every step you still feel like there’s a chance. …
