This spring break, we decided on a loose theme: old-fashioned toys. Just a tilt, really. A mother’s attempt to pass the increasingly cyphoned-out time by hand. A deck of cards. A backyard trampoline. A jump rope. And one very modern electronic toy, immediately sacrificed to a Ponderosa. The stick flip is a small handheld game that beeps and keeps track of...
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After a year of borrowed addresses, this Christmas comes with nothing addressed to me. Not even a ghost of Christmas past asking for a wish list. Not to worry, when you are displaced and have to pack up again every few weeks, ownership becomes theoretical. I have one close family member, my son, who I suspect bought my gift at a gas station, and I love him...
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Over the past year, I have lived in several homes. Some were house sits, some were borrowed guest rooms. Each had a different layout, a different style of couch, and a different set of rules about how to care for pots and pans, fancier than I could ever afford. But as the doors revolved, I found myself drawn to rectangles that reassembled my emotional...
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I’m partial to snails and envy them in times of stressful decision-making. Desert snails can aestivate (a kind of hibernation) for years, sealing themselves in their shells with a layer of mucus until rain returns. It is a radical decision to pause life, guided only by tiny environmental cues like humidity. Sounds kinda nice. This was a week when science...
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I write from Taos, where I swear there is both a yard sale and fresh eggs on every corner. It’s a yearly tradition we call an inverse family reunion: instead of gathering with extended family, we split into our own orbit. A family of two learning how to be two separate ones. So Taos becomes a place where I can go to be alone for multi-day stretches, with...
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