The first time I felt body shame, I was ten years old. It felt white hot, like swallowing a burning coal and feeling it slowly sink and settle in my stomach. Someone told me it was time for me to start watching what I ate, because I was getting chubby. Embarrassment flamed my cheeks. Am […]
Who Will Pluck My Chin Hairs?
by on April 11, 2019 Leave a Comment
My mom and I once made a solemn vow: If either of us is ever in a coma, we promise to pluck one another’s chin hairs. My petite, five-foot-tall mom once grew out a single hair to see how long it would get. The coarse black hair spiraled below her chin until my brother and […]
As the Anniversary of My Mom’s Death Approaches
by on March 28, 2019 Leave a Comment
The body remembers. It keeps tabs and intuits cycles. The doing the feeling the becoming all tangled together. Not unlike last year’s morning glory vines braided together, now brown from frost after frost after frost. Whose roots are plump with green, waiting while the light stretches long About a month before The date something shifts […]
Cultivating A Holy Curiosity
by on February 27, 2019 1 Comment
Every day I stand and watch this intersection of four roads that is such a symbolic intersection of all of life. I look out over my current little corner of the world through a smudged floor-to-ceiling window. From the time I pull back the paisley curtain, blinking at the light pouring in my room, to […]
The Hard Work of Hope
by on January 23, 2019 Leave a Comment
For several years now I’ve skipped, or seriously toned down, my activities on December 31st and have gone out to greet the new year in the morning instead. I like to drive out to the ocean and stand in the cold wet air and breathe in all that a new year has to offer. I like […]
