Look East

A Story of Christmas Yet To Come Race Point is the easternmost I’ve ever been— in fact, it’s just about as eastward as you can get in the States, at the fingertip of Massachusetts’s arm. It was a strange thing to stand with all North America behind me, to face the horizon of sea, to … Continue reading Look East

Winter In Her Womb

A True Story from Home It happens every eight seconds, they say, but it’s no less weird and wonderful. I’ve never seen a baby be born, but my big sister has— twelve of them, actually. She earned her birth assistant’s certificate because she’d grown up the oldest sister, the babysitter, the Meg March of the … Continue reading Winter In Her Womb

All Shall Be Well

A Story of Christmas Past My grandma Karen watched Hallmark Christmas movies the way some people use an Advent wall calendar. She counted down to Christmas that way, settling into the couch every evening for the newest feature with the same cookie-cutter plotline as the night before---and she wanted us to relish them too. At … Continue reading All Shall Be Well

Prime Time

Ours is an old neighborhood. Old trees. Old houses. Old people, whose one surety in life is the six o’clock news. Wheel of Fortune comes on at seven. Postseason baseball airs after that, and since the Cardinals aren’t in the hunt, folks drift off in their recliners till the grandfather clock gongs 10. Daylight Savings … Continue reading Prime Time

Upon A Year Inside the Conservatory

I was out for a walk yesterday, brown leaves hurrying across the street, when I met my neighbor Mrs. Brenda. Before she asked it, I knew her question: "How's your book?" she called over the whir of a leaf blower. She's an author herself, and when I told her I was breaking ground on a … Continue reading Upon A Year Inside the Conservatory