I love her so much that when she calls me this afternoon during the most restful sleep I’ve been able to procure for days (despite all attempts to sufficiently plum tucker myself out and go to bed so early), and wakes me up (and simultaneously reminds my head that Hey! I remember! I was hurting before you went to sleep!) to squeal joyously in my ear that she! has! a job interview! tomorrrow! at 12:30pm! I don’t even grumble at her at all, or give her the half-asleep voice, or reveal to her in any way that I was just moments earlier more than half-asleep, because then she will feel bad for waking me up (and anyway, she can just read about it later; that’s what websites are for!), and I want to avoid making her guilty because I am genuinely happy for her, and enjoy the fact that she called me instantly to yell me the good news, I myself being privy to the fact that this has been one of the longest days in the history of long days for her.
And besides, at the end of the day, and at the beginning, and in the middle, and during pretty much any hour of the twenty-four comprising a day, most everything else–including naps and migraines and insomnia and sleepy voices–takes a backseat to being her big sister.
It was here, while waiting for my brother, that I started this story, although, of course, at the time I did not know that stories of life are often more like rivers than books. But I knew a story had begun, perhaps long ago near the sound of water. And I sensed that ahead I would meet something that would never erode so there would be a sharp turn, deep circles, a deposit, and quietness.
-from A River Runs Through It → Read more...
I posted a picture of him for a silly Instagram-related game and found him waiting for me in my dreams, something which occurs so rarely it still explodes solidly-constructed dams inside me each time I see his face, mustached and smiling at mine just the way he always did, just the way I always remember him. As usual he didn’t say much, not anything I could hear or remember, but he was there and I knew it, and when I → Read more...
I have words washed out to sea. Words ushered quietly from my lips to my fingertips, waiting patiently for the right tide, for the moon to bring my stories alive.
I have words being reviewed, words accepted and words rejected, and I’m clinging to my favorite lines, fighting for them, and it feels strange and new and exhilaratingly infuriating, this tug-of-war of wills and how the slightest bit of caving can make me feel like I’m flirting with abandoning the sanctity → Read more...
[Alternately titled: Story, The Second: The Girl Who Moved To Washington State]
It began simply. A direct message on Twitter first, followed by texts; those texts, in turn, begat plans. With those plans came anxiety and apprehension – I didn’t know you, not your face or your voice or anything else, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to – but also something exciting, a strange and unexpected hope hovering quietly on the horizon. And then we met, conversed and laughed → Read more...