I’ve been struggling the past few months with a feeling that I’ve come to describe as post-Brooklyn let down. I miss everything about the neighborhood I lived in earlier this summer: The school children down the block, the local book store around the corner (with a fat cat named Tiny) and the roses that grew in small gardens in front of many of the...
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Summer ends earlier for teachers than it does on the calendar, which means that I’m now in peak anxiety season. Not about teaching, which I love. I can hardly wait to get back to the classroom and meet the new students. Instead, I am anxiously thinking about the list of projects I had hoped to complete over the summer with “time off.” Looking at my list...
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I saw the advertisement around February, which is the month when I think I can’t possibly drive the same five miles of Flagstaff anymore: “Studio apartment for rent, Brooklyn.” I wouldn’t say I have many regrets in my life, but there is something like a feeling of absence. I wish I had lived in New York City when I was younger and been an intern...
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The meeting starts as all of my meetings outside of familiar buildings start. Out in the wilds of a water tank parking lot somewhere in Kachina Village, I wonder two things: am I in the right spot? and, am I late? A short walk through the pine needle-covered parking area assures me there is no other “there” here and that I just have to be patient. I see a...
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It was summer and, although my mother and I don’t remember exactly how old I was, I was old enough to read and old enough to know better. My mother held the box of effervescent denture tablets in one hand and, in the days before 911, dialed Poison Control on my grandmother’s rotary phone. I stood there stupidly in my grandmother’s kitchen, wondering how...
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