Memories

When I was a child my parents wouldn’t let me read science fiction or fantasy. I had to read a friend’s copy of A Wrinkle in Time during lunch and recess. When I was older I walked to the library to read books there. When I was twelve my parents decided it was okay for…

1. Rental scooters. Hipsters, stop running down little old ladies on the sidewalk, FFS. 2. Dog poop. 3. No matter how hard I try, my hair always looks like Lori Loughlin’s, and god knows this is not what I want. 4. That dude in the Atlas Shrugged T-shirt. 5. No one wears jeans, not even…

When I was a child, I had an insatiable appetite for fairy tales. Rumpelstiltskin, Jack and the Beanstalk, the Elves and the Shoemaker, Three Billy Goats Gruff. I mean, their fantastical aspects aside, fairy tales are a lot like life: an unprepared person enters a chaotic, upside-down world, and tries to survive. Resourcefulness is necessary,…

Yesterday, someone kept telling me I was “superhuman” because I’ve dealt with challenges. I’m a mother who loves her daughter and made some sacrifices. That doesn’t make me superhuman. That make me a parent. In the past, I’ve been called “inhuman” because I had to make brutal, agonizing decisions about my daughter. That doesn’t make…

In the U.S., today is Independence Day. I took the day off from work not because I wanted to celebrate the country (I’m actually quite alarmed at what is happening here) but because it is always a day where I reflect on my own Independence Day, which happened in a November more than twenty years…

Whenever I look in the mirror, I’m always surprised to see all the silver in my hair. How did that happen? Last I checked, I was nineteen. Of course, with a twenty-year-old daughter, I can’t still be nineteen but I can pretend. A few weeks ago, I started re-reading the Travis McGee mystery/suspense series by…