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Sunbeams

My religion is very simple — my religion is kindness.

Dalai Lama

Mama’s Story

I’ve warned Mama not to tell her story today. Mama has a visitor, a Mrs. Thompson from her Sunday School class. First Baptist believes in staying in touch.

Spies

Our favorite game was called “Spy on Stella.” We loved to watch her when she thought she was alone and unobserved. It was our way of having power over her, for the few moments she dozed in the green chair in the living room or stood in the kitchen cooking, singing along with Jack Jones on the stereo.

How I Got Here

Heroes And Heroines

Margaret Mead, John Lennon, Mister B.

Sam

There was a scarecrow named Sam. He lived in a field of corn, with no shelter from the sun and snow. He wore an old felt hat — gray — and a faded black suit jacket.

Flirting

A sock in the arm, a borrowed pencil, a thrown cork

The Child In The City

The horror and melancholy of childhood are what stand out. I can no longer remember most of it explicitly. I cannot even swear that the haunting happened in this lifetime. The so-called moment of trauma has vanished into the darkness of existence itself.

A Little Irish Water Music

Occasionally, when Dad belted up his trousers with twine, she turned as brittle as snapbread, but in those early years, she was usually willing to dismiss our days as the pruning from which decorous bloom must one day erupt.

Childhood

“I only wish I could be so young and carefree,” your father says when he comes home from work. He doesn’t remember what it’s like. The pressure, the decisions.