Category: Essays

Where did you come from? And how do I cram you back into a box and seal the lid shut? How on earth did you–the demon I so vowed to slay–slither back into my world…

I was almost named for a woman called Marcella. The answer could have been a joyful “yes” and yet my parents dodged the question when I ask straight out. I’m forever puzzled. So I’ve taken…

On February 14, 1986, Dave’s bended knee marriage proposal arrived in his Valentine’s card. Without knowing his intentions or what his heart might say, the card I’d already written for him just said yes. Yes,…

“If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing.” M Barrie quote from Peter Pan They’d tricked four- year- old me into thinking that a tonsillectomy would be a short adventure followed by…

Tiny – a dynamo at less than 100 pounds – Kay began and ended my summers for the last dozen years. I was an-almost-there, rest-up stop on her way from Hallock, Minnesota, to West Glacier….

love is a place ee cummings love is a place& through this place oflove move(with brightness of peace)all places yes is a world& in this world ofyes live(skilfully curled)all worlds       Whitepages Inc. just emailed…

I smile when I tell the story. And for too long never really saw that conversations quieted, that listeners heard the sow’s ear of pain I’d lovingly tried to disguise as a silk purse of…

Not an afterlife, I think. For certain not one presided over by the Specter, by mercurial and personal preferences, For certain not a celestial cocktail party where Dave’s first three wives and assorted camp followers…