Queen of Strays

Amy wrote, ‘There are many things one should try not to take personally. An absence of convenient parking, inclement weather, a husband who finds that he loves someone else.’

Me and Mr. Kappus

Writing almost slipped through my splayed fingers like four o’clock sand in August. Burning as it went. Then, 2020. In a nutshell: global pandemic, three small kids, one overworked husband. Me, crying on the floor of my closet. I’m 39, wiping down my groceries with Lysol wipes exactly once and then deciding that I’d rather we all die than do that again. I’m forty, lying in bed at night, wondering whether the fever that plagues my two-year-old is COVID-19 or one too many boogers eaten off the tip of his plump tiny thumb. The fear is palpable. It takes my breath away.

Water Bully

...Listen to the narrator of Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”: “He sat and regained his breath, he noted that he was feeling quite warm and comfortable. He was not shivering, and it even seemed that a warm glow had come to his chest and trunk.” With paradox, there isn’t a need for matches. You discover that “freezing was not so bad as people thought. There were lots worse ways to die.”

The Sharks Were Circling

It is a misconception that there is a cure for addiction, our inner monsters are not slain.  Rather we learn to live with our monsters and sometimes it’s torturous and sometimes it’s hilarity. Most of the time, for me, it’s an annoyance, an empathy, an echo of another life, a window into another’s pain.  For those same reasons I am motivated to write: that another person may relate to the feelings I express and in turn feel inspired, seen, understood—and most of all—like I feel when I read and write—less alone.