Browse Topics

Worry

Skin

I like to look at people’s skin. The way others might notice a man’s eyes, or the curve of a woman’s hip, I notice complexion and skin tone. It’s not the face I’m drawn to but the skin on forearms or around the collarbone, the wrinkles on knuckles — that’s real skin.

Jonsared

He doesn’t seem crazy. Not at all. There’s no muttering, no matted hair, no tics, no eyes that are keyholes into rooms where the worst things happen.

We’re Family In Here

I glance sideways at my hospital roommate. Sonya sits erect as a queen in her cranked-up bed, gazing ardently at the goings-on in Julia’s kitchen. Cooking shows are Sonya’s favorite, and she is relieved that I profess to like them, too.

Sunbeams

The toughest part of being on a diet is shutting up about it.

Gerland Nachman

Losing Weight

Filing for divorce, buying a skirt that ended above the knees, getting a stomach-stapling operation

August 2000

Getting up before dawn opens a door for me. Sometimes the door swings wide; usually it opens just a crack. Still, I’m grateful to be here — even though the darkness makes me a little nervous; even though the loneliness is here with me.

Selected Poems

Old Soul

How Aging Reveals Character — A Conversation With James Hillman

To show one’s face is part of having the courage to show who one is. And coming to terms with your own face takes a lifetime. Just think how, when you were twelve or sixteen, you wished you looked different. And that’s true for everyone; even the most perfect, beautiful boy or girl is dissatisfied. So why is that? It can’t just be that I don’t look like the model on the magazine cover. It’s something else. You haven’t yet accepted your fate, who you are. As you get older, that relationship between your face and who you are matures. They blend together. Your true self shows more.

Lifestyles Of The Blind And Paralyzed

A Eulogy For Mark O’Brien

That O’Brien was out on the streets and not hidden away in some nursing home was a testament to his Irish dander. Remember, this is a man who — since the age of six — had the use of one muscle in his right foot, one muscle in his neck, and one in his jaw. That’s it. He made full use of all three. He used the foot muscle to steer his monster machine; he used the other two to bang with a stick on the keys of a computer, to write, cajole, editorialize, storm, cry, laugh, and rage. You tell me he wasn’t a nut case?