Circa age three, my Great Grandmother Lucille taught me this rhyme and how to pump my legs to use our backyard swingset. This Thanksgiving offered a full-circle moment to that earliest memory.
Read More
“Have you ever been apple picking?” my friend Leila asked.
“I’ve always wanted to go.” I kept my eyes on the road for our exit.
“I’ll tell you the trick,” said Leila. “You have to twist the apple. If it’s ready, the stem breaks right off. But when the fruit isn’t ripe, it simply won’t come off. You can keep twisting and twisting, and it still won’t come. Or you could force it off, but then it won’t taste good. You can’t tell just by looking.”
”So You don’t know until you try,” I said.
Somehow, a little fly got trapped inside my car. He flew in when I stopped to get a breakfast taco on my way to Midland.
“Please fly out little guy,” I coaxed, cracking a smile at my own little joke. Five minutes later, I waited at Sonic for my diet cherry and lime coke. “Okay buddy, both doors are open for you now.”
The windows in my lime green beetle stopped working in 2020, just like everything else. Mr. Buzzy had a choice to make: get out now, or wait a loooong time for the next stop.
#WestTexasDriving
Each time, he bzzzzzzed, fought and tried to “escape” at the window. I opened my door, and he just kept flying to the crack where he “should” have been able to escape. Buzz Buzz flew from window to window, totally missing the wide-open doors that waited for him.
Read More
I hope you will forgive me when I break format for this post. I can’t provide a SINGLE circumstance in this piece because this dream come true for me was built on what feels like a million moments.
Read More
During the pandemic, I tend to begin messages this way— “I hope this email finds you well during this surreal season.” Whether it’s a work contact I’ve never met or someone I’ve known for years, I imagine saying so much more. Let’s face it, this one-sentence greeting barely scratches the surface of what may be happening off screen in their daily lives—of how the email really “finds” them. I want to reach through the ether and just give them a hug. I think about the words I wish to share…
Read More
Around 11pm, I exited the highway onto a double turn lane. In the left lane, I inched out for a right on red. The truck next to me, pulling a giant trailer, followed in full force. They gunned their gas and I watched as momentum swung the trailer into my lane. I sped my VW Beetle into the opposite side of the double yellow. One car, in oncoming traffic, switched lanes…
Read More
Roaches. They haunt my first memories. In Lubbock, TX circa age two, my twin sister and I both woke up from bad dreams. We set out to seek comfort. Reaching our parents required a journey across the house.
We knew endless dark bugs waited for us.
Read More
The cop took a U-turn at the light, following me in my lane.
“There is a police car behind me,” I explained to my sister on the phone. I put my blinker on and turned. “Oh no, they turned too.”
Read More
Rollerskating. The shine of a newly waxed wooden floor. The clunk, clunk, clunk of those four wheels speeding around the rink. The throbbing pop music pumping through the speakers. I love the roller rink. I spent my adolescence there, and now, as a momma, I take my kids.
The first time I took them, I hadn’t been rollerskating in a while, but I was game. We laced up our skates and hit the floor. Literally. It didn’t take more than four rotations before my face made a beeline for that waxy wood. But something in my mind kicked in.
Read More