Image credit: Photo by Kikishua on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons In my bedroom, buried in a pile of papers is a questionnaire labeled "The Marriage Expectation Inventory." Each question is answered in neatly printed block letters in purple ink. After nearly a decade and a half, the ink has started to bleed through the [...]
Posts under ‘memories’
Trauma
Image credit: Photo by Express Monorail on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons In the dream, I was driving on a highway laid out like silver thread between my home and the nearest big city. My husband was seated next to me, smiling, and I could feel the kids safely at home, laughing with their babysitter. [...]
Haiku from my Teen Diary – June 9, 1986
That must be heaven. A place you can be yourself and not be afraid.
Haiku for Letters
Old notebook paper: Your pen followed the blue lines tracing out your day. The pages are creased. Pressed by your own hand, sealed, sent hand by hand, to me. And you say please. Please. Write. Send me something you touched. E-mail's so sterile.
A Letter from my Past Self
Image credit: Photo by Deltasly on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons Memory is notoriously unreliable: we leave out some details and enhance others; we rewrite old understandings based on what we currently know; we simply forget. I've written about most of the incidents in this blog from memory, even those few events I do have [...]
World of Illusion
Image credit: Photo by kippbakr on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons "Whoa! How did he do that?!" my kids exclaimed as the magician we were watching lifted a cup to reveal that a small red rubber ball had been magically transformed into a bright yellow tennis ball. My son Austen thought a moment and then [...]
Warning Signs
Image credit: Photo by kaladan on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons I went for a checkup recently, and as I waited for the doctor, I read some of the brochures in the office about heart disease, diabetes, cancer... And found that in nearly every brochure, one of the symptoms listed for cancer was "no symptoms [...]
Replay
Image credit: Photo by Great Beyond on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons Earlier this year, I read an article about technology that would allow us to record and store every moment of our lives. Imagine: our whole lives stored in a single searchable archive. We could settle those arguments with the boss by replaying what [...]
Killing Me Softly
Image credit: Photo by Estrella Esteve on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons "I can't hear this song without thinking of you," I said to Mark as The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" came on my music mix a few days ago. It reminded me of falling in love with him in college: how he made me [...]
Haikus for Christmas Long Ago and Far Away
A box marked "fragile" holds shining memories wrapped in crumpled paper. She lights up like a firefly whenever you're around, George Bailey. Once a year. Each year. They emerge, sparkling, to be packed away. The delicate glass, like breath on a windowpane, glitters and is gone. This year, glass soldiers wait, tissue-wrapped with angels, in [...]
