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My mug had developed veins. At least that’s what I called them. Thin, branching lines appeared inside the cup over time, spreading beneath the glaze like tiny rivers on a map. At first, they were barely noticeable. Later, they collected traces of tea, becoming darker and easier to see. I loved that mug. It arrived…
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I cannot remember a time before the green bowl. It is small, made of plastic, and entirely unremarkable to anyone who didn’t grow up with it. Total kitsch. I remember eating applesauce from it when I was a child. I remember seeing it in kitchen cabinets and on countertops. I remember it moving from one…
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I am standing on my deck talking to a piece of glass. Not tapping. Not typing. Talking. A few moments from now, I will walk back into my office, sit down at my desk, and find that thought, that conversation waiting for me on a computer inside the house. I understand enough about technology to…
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I still have the key to my first car. A Ford Fiesta that disappeared while I was away at college. My father sold it without telling me. I came home one weekend and the car was simply gone. No farewell drive. No conversation. No chance to stand in the driveway and decide whether I was…
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There was a period of time when the purse lived inside a paper bag. Not a preservation box. Not tissue paper. Not behind glass. A crumpled, brown, oilpaper bag, tucked inside a steamer trunk discovered in my Nana’s old chicken coop after she died. Also inside the trunk was a velvet dress with small sections…
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Some things, some experiences, are held in the heartlong before they are held in the hand. We think about them.Assign meaning to them.Wait for the right version of ourselves to arrive first. And then sometimes, almost by accident,the body enters the conversation. The weight is different than expected.The balance feels unfamiliar.A hand reaches for the…
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There are spaces where we begin translatingbefore anyone has asked a question. We soften the edges.Clarify the meaning.Adjust the language until it feels easier to receive. Not because it is false,but because experience has taught uswhat happens when we do not. Some translations are generous. Others are survival. A way of moving through roomswhere being…
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There are things we hold ontolong after they stop holding us. Not because they are still alive,but because we remember when they were. We stay.We adjust.We look for a way to remain. Even when the signals are clear. A door that does not open.An experience that moves forward without us.A conversation that shifts, just slightly,…
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There are times when nothing is wrong. No conflict.No failure.Nothing to point to and say, this is why. And still, something has changed. A child grows,and the shoes that once fitbegin to press in all the wrong places. The shoes are not the problem.The child is not the problem. They no longer match. It is…
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There are things we want to do. Small things.Quiet things. And then, just as quickly,something shifts. Not resistance, exactly.Just a soft turning away. It would be easier not to do it or not to go.To skip it, to stay.To let the moment pass. Nothing would be lost, exactly. But something would be missed. So we…