Sometimes I pitied Amma for having to relentlessly perform her role and live up to Appa’s expectations. The roles and rules were very clear. Amma and I were occupants of this house. Appa was the owner. Amma was a tenant in their marriage, Appa, its owner. It didn’t leave me with a rosy picture of marriage.
Writing is My Breathing
Reading is like a sea. If we’re pushed into it, we learn to survive — just like Pi Patel. If we jump into it willingly, we swim. Either way, we change significantly.
Come A Little Bit Closer
She gave some reason for the cancellation, something about a family event that slipped her mind until about an hour before our meet up. I suspected she was clearing her schedule for someone higher on her roster, but I didn’t say anything. “It’s okay,” I told her over the phone, and was the first to hang up.
Noncombatant
When Nan started at the paper people talked to each other more, sat together. Nan wasn’t included at first but that changed over time and she believed she earned their respect. Her cubicle had come because of a promotion; she’d have preferred to still be in the newsroom.
Blue Giantess
He was a wriggling thing of eight his first time at sea. Until then he had had to watch as the men of the wharf sang their way down the docks.
The boy was awestruck as they creaked into their ships and slipped between the two vast and unforgiving blues.
The Art of the Word
I grew up in a town that boasts one stoplight, a grassed-over train track, and an abundance of barns. With woods that range from scenic to scary, depending on the time of day and the whereabouts of the neighborhood fisher-cat, we had all the trappings and small-town sentimentality of a Hallmark movie set, or a Stephen King backdrop.