On things I never used to know
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On the appointed one
Jessica and I are snowed in, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix, sitting on the lime-green sofa and laying bets on whether there really will be six more weeks of winter, when she says, “Remind me who the acquainted one is.” “The who?” I ask. She points to the laptop and Buffy, and I…
The Faucet
The faucet is dripping. The drip is loud in the quiet room: Splat! Like a children’s book: Splat! Splat! Goes the water. “Mom?” Jessica is watching me. She says something else, a thing I can’t hear because the drip is so loud. I jump to my feet to wrench the handles shut but it’s a…
On thinking better thoughts
I am having a bad day. A hard day, following a hard week, in the middle of a hard month. We’re all having days like these, I’m sure, when our usual balms aren’t available. We can’t meet friends for drinks after work, or go to a movie, or run to the gym and punch a…
On the last days of summer
_________________________________ It is a beautiful late-summer Saturday, warm enough for sandals and T-shirts but not too hot. The sky is blue with fat clouds that look as if they were painted on a china plate. Jessica and I are running errands, and she is scheduled to go bowling with a parks-and-recreation group in forty minutes,…
Bad words, revisited
So Jessica comes home to tell me about a new student who is learning boundaries. Me: Tell your teacher if he’s too much of an ass. Jessica: I will, except I won’t call him an a-s-s. Me: Probably wise. Jessica: Did you use bad language at school? Me: Not in front of anyone who would…
Life’s Insoluble Problems
A while back, I ran across this quote from the French poet Christian Bobin: “I was peeling a red apple from the garden when I suddenly understood that life would only ever give me a series of wonderfully insoluble problems. With that thought an ocean of profound peace entered my heart.” I am sure the…
