The first week when the world unraveled I went for a run as if it were any other March day. I pick up the bike path where it intersects with my favorite, go-to café. This was back in the care free days when our governor was restricting gatherings to 50 people or less. The café was open with a lot less life inside than there … Continue reading What The Magnolia Knows
We’re all brave somewhere. I’m brave on paper. A woman friend of mine recently confronted a man on an airplane. This seems equal parts courageous and unadvisable. You’re already sardined into the equivalent of a flying Dairy Whip canister with nothing between one another but flimsy pieces of plastic and a bag containing six off-brand Fishie crackers. Stirring it up with a fellow traveler at … Continue reading Brave on Paper
Even though I didn’t know how to play any type of jazz instrument, when I was a junior in high school I decided I was going to join jazz band. Ours was a fairly typical suburban high school arts program: understaffed, under appreciated, underfunded. The light board for our school’s auditorium was run by a combination of the same circuitry used to send the first … Continue reading Fourth Chair
A young woman sat at the end of long wooden community table in the café, which was empty except for her. Sunlight poured through the large window behind her, spilling over the thick text book splayed open in front of her. From where I sat, I could see the pages divided with the hieroglyphics of math equations on the top and big expanses of blank … Continue reading Are You Alright?
This October I missed New England’s main event: peak fall foliage. For people unfamiliar with this phenomenon, each autumn the leaves all over this part of the country go on a hunger strike, leeching the green from their veiny hands to replace it with the most brilliant, jeweled earth tones of scarlets, oranges, and yellows. Natives and tourists alike flood the area to take in … Continue reading No Peaking
