It’s a routine day at Grandpa and Grandma’s. A brightly colored skyscraper of towering Duplo blocks decorates the middle of the living room. Grandpa has taken time off from his Foot-a-eat-asourous duties, which explains the six cartoon-charactered socks and six empty shoes scattered about. A row of cars line an imaginary road transitioning the doorway […]
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A bit of a ruckus in Aisle Four grabs my attention. Stacks of bright notebooks and bins of colored pens separate me from a young father trying desperately to check off the teacher’s list in his hand. A little girl circles about his knees. Little fingers fly over items faster than he can stop them. […]
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“Call me Mara,” Naomi said. Tragedy chiseled her face and spilled from her lips. Pleasant, the meaning of her name no longer fit. Mara suited her, for it meant “bitter.” “I went out full and came back empty,” Naomi told them. I know many Mara’s. Women and men whose lives turned out so very […]
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The first August I lived in Italy, I had no idea what had hit the entire country. Still anemic in language and culture, I didn’t know what to make of the silent streets of Florence, usually full of people, suddenly deserted. My bread store with its big gray steel closure had a handwritten note on […]
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“You only live once,” she quipped. Laughter followed that flippant remark. I turned away from the screen. I’ve used those same words to justify indulgences from purchases, to a risk, and maybe most often, to eating that last piece of chocolate. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. This week, as I hear her […]
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“Would you rather be a bullfrog?” I ask my grandsons. My finger dramatically lands on the big green bullfrog leaping across the left side of the page. The book with the same title, by Theo. LeSieg (better known as *Dr. Seuss,), lays open on my lap. I slide my finger to the right and I […]
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The blue-overall-clad farmer plucked a bearded head from its white stalk. His form blotted a black silhouette against the bright sky. I squinted in the sunshine. A shadow lay across me, its black outline with the billed cap looked like a crow atop his head. Hands browned like leather, spotted with age, rolled the wheat […]
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