Nov 21, 2021carmen“ But Carmen, sweet and expecting nothing but to be held a few minutes a day, just turned my own idea of loneliness inside out." The...
Sep 2, 2021training“ I began to scream so loudly and for so long that my voice stopped working. I kicked everything fallen from my suitcase across the room...
Aug 10, 2021river“ I could declare “enough” and hang myself from the rafters of the back deck. Or, I could, for the first time in my adult life, live.” I...
cheap“ They thought my enthusiasm was funny, so after my fifth or six purchase, they brought out a cardboard box of vinyl record albums....
sink“ The concrete of the pool moved past me and I sank silently for a bit." I fell into the Hutchings’ pool when I was two and a half, and...
lucky“ The man who ran the booth for the local charity began to recognize me, and as I won more and more of the smaller prizes, he would call...
work“ She peered out the back window through the curtains. I pushed, and sweated. Pushed and sweated. " My mother came home one spring day...
imagination“ I began to dream of finding hidden rooms and magical places, the surprise always flooding me with feelings of happiness and relief. I...
tv“ The music subsided. This was it, and everyone we knew would be watching. “We are back!” declared Officer Bill, making his way over to...
penpal“ She pushed to exchange photos, and she finally sent hers, cute with long hair, with a note that said, “Send yours or else no more...
emergency“ I shoved my quarter in and dialed, but got a busy signal. I tried again. Busy. Again. Busy. I started to panic. I dialed “0” and an...
goldie“ One day I realized I had left my Goldie at Marine Midland Bank, when my mother and I had stopped to cash my dad’s check, and cried most...
goodness“ We began to pick up the many broken jars, wrappers and single muddy gloves from under our feet. We would yell out an unusual find, or...
wave“ “Now!” he yelled, pushing my shoulder, and down I went. I began to gain momentum. Faster and faster my heavy body shot down the...
fresh“ We had signed up to be a Fresh Air Fund host family. Kids from 5 to 13 were bussed up for two weeks each summer from the inner city...
idiot“ My mother called him "The Village Idiot," because he would often stop while we played on the sidewalk to babble incoherently at us, or...
child“ The voices of my parents giving away where they were in the house, moving around with echoes and the laughter of my mother. " I wake...
apartment“ "I read books, I write fan letters, and I wonder what kind of show I would like to host someday." I can barely contain my excitement...
happy“ When she turns on the lights to our twinkling dining room, I fall to my knees, speechless." My grandmother passes away when I am 10,...
stairway“ I would listen to my parents talk about me as if I were someone else’s child. " At the top of the stairway up to the second floor of...
friend“ Stuck in the fence was a goat, silent, her head lodged between two slats of the metal, her body sunk to the ground as if she had given...
soul“ I looked over at Luke, and he looked up at me, his eyes squinting, his ears humbly pressed back against his head. Then, on his own, he...
acceptance“ “Um,” the agent said to me, hinting at something I wasn’t getting. “Um,” he said again, gesturing down toward the floor. " I was at the...
bond“ I decided as a gift to myself, I would rent a cabin at an upstate park. I worried that Luke, still so young and unruly, would turn the...
race“ Caesar looked up at me, opened up his cheeks, and vomited sunflower seeds onto my hand. He wasn’t well. I panicked. I had counted on...
stay“ There are stone covered graves lined with roughly cut wooden crosses that say “Razz , a good dog” and “Chumley, church cat, fed by...
angel“ He is the same fish that greeted me this morning, almost two years later, as he always does, recognizing me as I approach the tank,...
lukey“ When you want to sleep with me, I will carry you up the steep stairs of the cabin, while you clutch me like a baby. " Luke, I promise...
rescue“ Her baby turned around to face me and I kissed her on the nose, then took our picture to remember how beautiful she is." I entered the...
found“ For over two hours, we tried to find our way back but could not, instead coming to dead ends of fallen trees or thorny brush. “Sorry,...
swim“ When I turned, he was leaning forward, making pretend paddling motions in the water with his paw. “That’s it, babe, you’ve got this,...
bf“ As he pulled himself over, Luke cannonballed onto me from the other direction as if he were sliding into home base, which thanks to...
trail“ Luke, who is wiggling down the slippery side of this place he has never been, not disoriented from being uprooted and catapulted 3,000...
father“ I have no children. All I know of being a father, I have learned from Luke. " Luke is curled and pushed up next to me in the comforter...
child“ He reached up to my face and licked me. And then he died. " There are a million mugs and refrigerator magnets about how our dogs are...
feelings“ My friend Seri’s father gave me a box of small red spiral notebooks he found at work, and I meticulously wrote my scripts over into...
45“ The song from the movie, “The Morning After,” became my favorite, and I played it over and over in my room, until it became so...
diva“ My mother and I had passed this place, which we called “The Purple Building,” for years on our way to Grants Department Store or to...
finale“ I had watched every airing of A Star is Born, and knew each song and word of the script, quietly acting out the scenes with Barbra...
touch“ Diana came out in a red sequined dress and mile high hair. "Reach out and touch, somebody's hand," she sang softly, making her way to...
star“ A few weeks later, the autographed photos began to arrive. Each day, my heart would race as I opened the mailbox, wondering who would...
hand“ I took a deep breath to accept and remember that Jamie Lee Curtis was pulling me by my hand through a crowd of people at a party." Our...
sky“ I go into the theater and I am the only person there, taking a seat toward the front and in the middle. I glance nervously at the back...
character“ Once, during a lively Tupperware party in our living room, where I was helping her serve cake, my mother pulled me aside. “Do you want...
diary“ I would take the diary inside my closet in the dark with a blue pen, unlock it with the metal key, and write curse words on page after...
window“ I would yell out "Go away!" in these moments, still asleep, sometimes finding my voice, sometimes strangled with silence, and wake up...
shangri-la“ Nothing like what was beginning to happen to me in the shadows of my own neighborhood. In Shangri-la, everyone loved everyone with...
two“ Was she telling me it was me? Was she asking me? How could I tell her that it was more than a decade ago that I knew what Tommy’s...
secret“ Nobody needs to know that I was so ashamed of having glasses as a chubby kid that I took them apart and secretly held one lens up to my...
room“ I am the only one who knows what is happening to me. Why a little boy who was taught to be kind to the man next door now cries at...
shit“ You are that same wounded little boy who would scream “Shit!” and “Fuck!” into a heavy winter coat in the dark corner of your bedroom...
superheroes“The relief, understanding and joy it brings us as we begin to clear the path to love ourselves, and as we share that love with others,...
spirit“ Some spirits are driven by the things they have been left out of. Some are driven by the things they imagine but cannot have. Some...
go“ You will never trust anyone completely. You will dream in the shallow end and expect nothing. You will feel a little angry all the time...
time“ This is the last stop on a trip I never meant to be on, taken away from a life I worked hard for, and when it derailed some time ago, I...
abuse“ I ask him what makes him happy. He says when someone else is." I look in the mirror as the older man with the frightened red eyes...
twilight“ The idea of these secret places where I was safe stayed with me, and took me through a dark time where I had to hold the entire truth...
group“ The moments when I feel most comfortable are the ones where I bump up against others like me, in the corners, in the dark. " All my...
football“ ...once I am in bed it flows over me like a heavy wave of oil, making its way up over my nervous system and into my head, where fear...
adoption“ ...the toughest moment of your life is when you have a lot of the answers but have to answer the last big one: what are you going to do...
giraffe“ My friends the inflatable animals are stuck in the pool, vulnerable to the wind and rain and lightening. I cant bear it. " I am a child...
reel“ As we played the very last reel, the camera panned across the water as a beautiful woman in a white one piece bathing suit water-ski'd...
ask“ I looked out at the sleet, down at poor Rudy, and asked him if he would come to get us. “I’m on my way,” he said, hanging up. " The...
age“ His left eyelid wasn’t closing completely, distorting his always near-perfect vision and making it impossible to do what he loved most,...
wes“ At the top of the stairs, I heard him moan, then found him lying on his side on the carpet of his bedroom, his glasses bent, a few feet...
betty“ She was surprised one day, in first grade, when I shyly tapped her on the shoulder and asked if she could help me to find my teeth...
different“ For years, he proved to me how weak I was. He would call me a “pansy,” a “fairy,” and a “girl,” all of which meant weak. His nickname...
birthday“ My mother, now sick for almost five years, had given in to the cancer that had spread to her brain, waiting for me to drive through a...
uno“ “Would it upset you to know that your father was married before?“ I was 17 and had never had a moment like this with her. " My mother...
gigi“ During the summer, I would hop on my yellow Huffy and take my new 45’s over to play for her as she loved music as much as I did. " My...
play“ Her Irish catholic parents had disowned my mother briefly, and so I understood why throughout the twelve years I knew my grandmother I...
men “ I wanted to look like him, with shaggy long hair that fell over his eyes, and jeans with holes that belled out at the bottom." I...
home“ There, in the living room, is my Dad, who had vowed that he would skip this Christmas, standing next to a bare tree, tangled in lights...
boobs“ I think about the joke - which I cannot remember but it was about boobs and I had told it to Todd Krissell - and that will make it the...