On my bedroom shelf, three bottles of perfume are ready for a new home. One lost its top, the second is clogged, and the third—if you ask me—is just being stubborn! Yet, I look at them sitting there and it's as if they are saying, “Yeah, we’re here! Whatcha gonna do about it?”
Okay, that’s only the sassy one. The other two can’t figure out why I haven’t used them in over a year.
Read MoreDuring 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 MoreMISSION: Find and eat the sugar cubes! As kids, we spent HOURS playing church hide and seek. We felt like finding sugar cubes was a simple extension of the game. Parish halls = coffee. Coffee = sugar. Simple math.
When we were really young, sugar cubes were still a thing and our dad was a visiting minister. We had many new territories to explore. We tested unlocked doors, snuck into nurseries and scoured cupboards. The entire campus was our playground.
Read MoreI walked into the dark IMAX theater a few minutes late. Without my special 3D glasses, I saw fuzzy orange butterfly images and greenery. In the crowd, kids stood in front of their chairs with their arms out in expectation. I chose a seat up high so I could enjoy the movie and the children trying to catch monarch magic.
Read MoreRoaches. 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 MoreThe 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 MoreI met Trice at The Absinthe House on Pearl Street. The bar doesn’t exist anymore, but when it did they had weekly reggae nights. I spotted him immediately—that woven tam cap slouching over two kind eyes, those baggy jeans swaying gracefully to the music. He asked me to dance, and I asked him what he did—proving that first impressions aren’t everything. That sometimes, the soul’s story sounds like The Wailers when it sings.
Read MoreAfter family staycations at the Embassy Suites, my twin sister and I thought “happy hour” was actually called “happy time”. Often, we’d take these trips in the fall. Rachel, my brother Joshua and I would swim for hours. We’d leave the warm indoor pool only to procure Shirley Temple and popcorn refills. We’d sloth on the walls of the pool, shoveling buttery goodness into our mouths. As leaves crunch and the weather crisps, it’s easy to get nostalgic.
Read MoreI didn’t have time to stop or swerve or even react. I just killed two birds. I just killed two birds. I keep thinking about them. I hear them colliding with my car and dropping underneath. The sound of tossing two full apples into an empty trash can; hollow thuds.
Read More
