It’s been hot and humid here for the past week or so, and that — along with the itchy spot just out of reach on my left shoulder blade — has me thinking about mosquitoes.
Indeed, was even the cradle only a goochie-goochie cove of good-fairy cobwebs entirely devoid of hobgoblin shadows; or was it not also the primordial place of boo-boo badness and doo-doo-in-diapers as well?
Quote of the day My den. “When evening comes, I return home and go into my study. On the threshold I strip off my muddy, sweaty, workday clothes, and put … Continue reading Reposting from M.C. Tuggle:
Just submitted my first round entry to the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge. The assignment was to write a fantasy involving vandalism which includes an interpreter as a main character. Whew! Totally out of my wheelhouse. #ShortStoryChallenge2022
Black History Month spurred us to investigate the institution of slavery in the Hudson Valley and, more specifically, Hillsdale. Like most Americans, we’ve been inclined to think of slavery as largely a Southern institution. But it was hugely important in the colonial North. From the earliest days of Dutch occupancy right up to the Civil War, much of New York State’s bustling economy benefited directly from traffic in enslaved humans…. [more]
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It’s a strange time we find ourselves in – but you knew that. All the talk of respirators has me thinking about an earlier time when my heart took on the rhythm of my grandson’s breath and my life seemed to hang from the lines that followed one another across a screen.
I’m definitely not a poet, but here’s my response to a writing assignment that seems apropos today.
Write a poem, you say. Start with an emotion and the person, place or thing that evokes the emotion, you say. It will be fun, you say.
There ought to be a word for grief and joy combined.
I had a grandson, and that says all and nothing at all.
The first time I met him, he was all surprised eyes and fingers fit for chasing chords across the keys.
Hello, I said, and then I saw his long limp little self. A flurry of activity marked him a problem to be solved, and I held my breath while he struggled to find his.
And later when he lay, swaddled like a little lima bean, respirator rudely interrupting, he fixed his milky gaze on me and there it was, the hinge my life would swing around. Would I love this wise-eyed child, destined to leave before his time? Yes, oh yes, and in a moment – I was lost, and being lost, was found.
I loved my children, of course I did, with a warm and homely sort of love. They were my darlings and my dears, beautiful brilliant girls. But I was unprepared for this soaring swooping stomach in the mouth sensation that opened me every time he smiled. I would do anything to see him smile.
For nine years, I was advocate, nurse, field marshal, singer of off-key songs, fetcher of forgotten toys. I was incandescent. Gabriel, my grandson, my beloved boy, was handsome and smart, funny and wise. He charmed everyone he met. But he couldn’t stay. When he told me, “I’m afraid I’m dying,” we talked about a place where bodies work and time is different. I’ll see you soon, I told him.
Today he runs on bright green grass, while I wait here for soon.
There should be a word for grief and joy combined.
