Browse Topics
Marriage
The Drunkard’s Gait
Sometimes I tell them my husband is dead. More often I say he’s working out of town. Or that he’s ill and in a hospital receiving treatment. None of these things is true. Or maybe one of them is. They all could be.
April 2004
March 2004
I’m tired this morning after having stayed up too late last night. Apparently I still haven’t learned how to tell time. If the little hand is on the 11 or 12, and the big hand is reaching for the remote or something to eat, does this mean I have all the time in the world?
March 2004Clinic
I thought the place looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure. I put down my plate of eggs, grabbed the TV remote, and turned up the sound. It was an abortion-clinic bombing: one bomb to lure the law, a second bomb to blow them up.
March 2004
Turning Thirty
Hiking the Appalachian Trail, shoplifting, feeling grateful for being alive in this world of difficult beauty
January 2004
Getting Away
After a cycling accident left my husband, Ralph, a quadriplegic, I had a furtive fear that, given the opportunity, I might bolt. I might up and leave him and all his problems. Like a deer avoiding an oncoming vehicle, I’d dash away and disappear forever into the safety of a thick, impenetrable forest.
January 2004
December 2003
I don’t want to read the word of Jesus today. I don’t want to read the words of Buddha. Words didn’t help last night when Norma told me how sad she was. I said all the right words. I know I did. Look at all my brave little soldiers, banners flying, rushing to the rescue, marching right off a cliff.
December 2003
March 2003
Middle age has been awkward, like adolescence, something to get through. Like a teenager walking out the door for the first time with his father’s car keys, I’m learning what it’s like to be old.
March 2003Don’t Come Crying Home To Me
Dying looks a lot like being born, I think standing over him, my fingers resting gently on his broad back. The contractions come in waves. Each time they are more intense, start earlier, last longer. Only now the body itself is the womb you leave behind.
March 2003
February 2003
It’s temporary, I tell myself. Then I remember that’s true of everything: the blazing fire; our two gray cats; my lovely wife with her long graying hair. If only I never lost sight of this. If only I didn’t shut my eyes except to sleep.
February 2003
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