following the flare

I walked home from work in one continuous stripe of sunlight past the canal-side patios crowded with burnt shoulders.  Past the old slanted houses with their dimpled windows squinting in this improbable burst… Continue reading →

there’s a certain slant of light

  The real reason I flew to California last month is that someone I love very much is quite ill. Emily Dickenson seems to have written the brief on how I feel about it:… Continue reading →

from up there

A few months ago my dad and I climbed the Dom Tower in Utrecht. A day or so into his visit, my very best “I’ve got it together” face crumpled as I let… Continue reading →

like family jewels

Place me like a seal over your arm. I wear Mimi’s gold monogram on my ring finger. Don’t let mercy and truth forsake you, bind them around your neck. And Grandma’s Tibetan lapis beads… Continue reading →

confession

This weather triggers three things: 1.  introversion 2.  plaintive songwriting 3. the visceral urge to make sticky toffee pudding thrice weekly.   How is winter pushing your buttons?    

bubble-wrapped lovers

I have a new beau! Truth be told, we’ve known each other since I was 10. But if you peeled back the bark and cut a cross-section of our relationship, it would be… Continue reading →

of the truth about loving

Exhibit A, 2009: Two crazy kids, nonchalant and confident that they will rock ‘this marriage thing.’ Exhibit B, 2012: Two shaken-up kids. The nonchalance seared off quick, like a slick of kerosene on… Continue reading →

of Kansas no more

I’ve been swirling about in a two-week tornado of work and writing, and the wind is finally dying down. Now I’m hovering just above ground with the tumbleweeds and rooftiles and chickens that… Continue reading →

of noise and nooks

I feed on white noise. In fact, I sleep deepest with a clackety fan blowing by my head. I can hole away in the back of a coffee shop, focusing through the hum… Continue reading →

of Spring being late to her own party

Spring is white wine and scratchy grass picnics. Spring is jam jars playing house on the pantry shelf. Spring is an odd ramshackle bird in the middle of the city. Spring is the… Continue reading →