The Still, Quiet Voice

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If I spent even ten minutes remembering, and writing, later that night when she screamed and fought me over eating or going to bed, I could go back to that place where I meditated on the way her hands looked as she carefully picked up a crab with a yellow plastic shovel.

Here Now

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“You’re a great mom,” she said. “You get grumpy, but you just had a baby by yourself. I know it’s hard.”

Finding Christmas

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I wish sometimes that this could be Christmas. Quiet mornings, in the glow of lights, and not a build-up to another early morning of opening gifts.

Quiet Moments of Success

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I usually allow moments like this to pass. I believe that if I give them attention, I might jinx them in some way.

pour qui

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Every word and thought and event seems to shape itself into a beginning middle and end in a perfect 800-word format that I can send off in a pitch.

The Lonely Times

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A dog who panics when you leave doesn’t need less love, she needs more.

Writing Out of Poverty. Literally.

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Without the degree, though, I don’t think I would have stopped cleaning houses. I don’t think I would have thought myself on the same level as the people whose houses I cleaned.

Finding your Inner Mr. Rogers

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Watching the episodes Netflix chose to release, especially the one with the crayon factory, was to sit as a child again, remembering my small frame and long hair, listening intently to the nice man telling me I mattered because I was me and nobody else was.