I wake before the alarm sounds to a little body clinging to mine like glue, moulded against my form. I am gripping the side of the bed as if my life depended on it. I feel like I have a giant mud sucker attached to my back. I get my bearings, stretch and make the …
Supper menu: spare-ribs slow roasted in the oven, turnip and potato with brown sugar and butter, cabbage casserole with tomato sauce and carrots. As an after-thought, I throw in the left-over fish sticks and oven fries from lunch, just in case. I am home alone, and the house is so unnaturally quiet. I stand at …
It is lunch time, and I am tidying up around the classroom when a little lady, let’s call her S., walks over to me to report that M., which stands for Monkey, hit her. Punched her, to be exact. M. is now doing what little boys do after they have made a serious mistake: he …
I am home after a busy day of work and running after-school errands, and I find my husband in the kitchen with his earphones plugged into his ears, speaking into his Smart phone in tones you would expect from a senior on Bingo day. This is what he is yelling, “Twilight Zone, play Twilight Zone.” …
Strangest question I was asked , twice, today: “Mom did, Grammie ever swallow pencil?” (And you want to know this, dear, because….????) “No, MaryAnne. Grammie never swallowed a pencil” “I mean the other Grammie, the one that lives far away. Did she ever swallow a pencil?” “No, your great-Grammie never swallowed a pencil either, MaryAnne.” …
It has been a quite a day, quite a week. Quite a month. I wonder how I made it this far, and yet what gives me the right to think that life is any more than this, or any less. For the past two months, I put myself in work-a-holic mode. I have put in …
I peek in the room, and she is propped up on pillows, reading by light of lamp left on from the evening before. She likes light through the night, to chase away boogie men and other creatures of the dark. Content with her books, now with the light of day coming through a crack in …
They urgently run in the door looking for cousins. No formal greetings made, there are games waiting to be played and stories to share. Some gather in the T.V. room and get sidetracked with a show while others rush outside to the swings. Two wait impatiently for a game of Risk, two go upstairs to …
Irene hit us yesterday morning. For all the hurricane predictions, she was not as wild a woman as we all expected, reduced merely to a tropical storm by the time she reached us. However, she unleashed a bit of fury in her passing by, knocking over trees, throwing debris all across our lawn, tossing flowerpots …
I was cleaning up after supper, when he suggested that we sit out on the veranda for coffee. I turned around and saw the box of chocolate truffles waiting as an invitation for something more, a date with my husband on the porch swing. I could feel the excuses surfacing…remnants from supper lay hardening on …
Emotion bubbling over into anger, spewing words reeking of bitterness. Blood pulsing, heat rising, heart racing. Hands fluttering over countertops, wiping at invisible stains. I scrub the same spot distractedly, then pace the kitchen, a million things to do and I cannot think of a single one of them right now. Frustration is the feeling, …
