A poem I haven’t thought of in some time has been hanging around me the past few days. Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe it’s a message. It turned up for me again this week as I was doing some research for a book idea. The poem is called The Blue House (by Tomas Transtromer). In… Continue reading the blue house
Category: Grief
lessons from a gravedigger
I stood at the upstairs bedroom window for a few minutes this morning, watching as a man chipped away at the cold, hard ground, squaring up the sides of a new grave in the cemetery that butts up against our backyard fence. People sometimes tell me they think it would be weird to live in… Continue reading lessons from a gravedigger
house of cards
It was a house of cards. Everyone was busy playing their hand. We took our own deck, a bottle of wine and a corner table. At the end of that night, the bottle was empty. Everyone was gone. And there on our table was this beautiful house of cards, stories, hopes and secrets. Something we… Continue reading house of cards
love, in the end
He kissed me the first time one night in front of the Francis Furniture store. The moon was high and, for the fifth or sixth night in a row, he ignored his aunt’s curfew and her pleas not to hang out with “that girl”. It was a bit of a hurried, kind of awkward affair… Continue reading love, in the end
baggage claim
I couldn’t have known it that night I found myself laying on the carpeted floor of the basement in our old house on Catherine Street – with the land line pressed hard against my ear – that you and I were having our coming out at the same time. It was the dead of summer.… Continue reading baggage claim
funerals and birthdays…
Mom & Aunt Ruth Yesterday, I went back to my hometown for my aunt’s funeral. For my mom’s oldest sister, my Aunt Ruth, whose tiny body held death at bay for so long that no one could understand why or how she did it. It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise though. Everyone in… Continue reading funerals and birthdays…
five things on a blue sticky note
All my life, my mom kept a running, hand-written grocery list. Always on the fridge, stuck there in the top corner with a cocker spaniel fridge magnet. It was one of those simple things that moms do that are probably only ever appreciated by their children – if at all – in hindsight, looking back… Continue reading five things on a blue sticky note
MeaningMaker 