Growing with gratitude for life's challenges
“Tell us a story, Grandma! Tell us about when you were a girl?” The question throws me. First, because childhood is so far away, but secondly, because my stories are tainted with pain and hurt. Looking into this pair of eager eyes though, I know they want a story filled with good will and hope. […]
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“Mom, I want you to know that I don’t harbour any ill will toward our past. If I seek to know what happened, it is only to understand myself so that I might heal.” Mom nods, considers my words. “There is so much I could have done differently.” “No. You did what you could with […]
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Subtitled My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin, Apprenticed to Venus is the part memoir, part novel of Tristine Rainier, who mentored under the famous diarist. Although I have been inspired by Nin’s words, I have known very little about her, so I was eager to read this book. Rainier, on an errand from her artist aunt, encounters […]
Read MoreBaseline is the name of the road on which my final high school stands. My ‘last chance’ authorities called it, as I’d been ‘asked to leave’ the previous one. Turned out the attendance officer was a parent of a former classmate and recognized me. I felt trapped. Skipping school was how I coped in those […]
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“…he had always been popular and happy and things had always worked out.” (Holly LeCraw, The Swimming Pool) I close the book, feeling the rage shifting just below my sternum. It’s the second time this week […]
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(The prompt for this week is surroundings and we were encouraged to focus on one aspect of nature as it relates to the story. I chose sparrows.) Out the back gate, across the farmer’s field and into the woods I go in search of the child, knowing that she comes here frequently, alone, despite the […]
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I write to you often. Does earthly mail even translate into the afterlife, I wonder. The distance between us, I find, only leaves me with more questions. Perhaps this is the byproduct of objectivity. It’s been twelve years, Dad, and so many things have changed, and yet, still the after shocks of your presence continue. […]
Read More“I’m in trouble!” My sister’s voice was weak but charged with panic. “Help me!” “What have you done?” She’d locked us all out of her apartment that weekend; said she was tired of being sick, tired of people hovering over her. She wanted to be independent. Reluctantly, we gave her space. I’d held my breath […]
Read MoreMaking sense of chaos is difficult for young minds, and yet, often necessary for survival. I could not have recited the list of causes for my family’s particular brand of dysfunction, I just knew from an early age that I needed to be on guard. So I developed what I called ‘body radar’. My parents […]
Read MoreThe riddle closes in. I can hear its heavy footsteps, echoing in my ears. The dark brings out that which the day hides. (Excerpt from Beautiful Affliction) Lene Fogelberg knows what it is like to live with an undiagnosed medical condition and to be turned away time and again from doctors. In Beautiful Affliction she […]
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One Woman's Quest II 