Mother and Daughter: Reading Each Other’s Lives
"This is not about you, Mother," I say but of course I know it is. "Didn't you see the title of this blog? I call it "her own terms" for a reason." I had been writing this blog for over…
Terra Bound and the Poetics of Space
Last night in writing group, the prompt was to write a fifteen line “mirror” poem in which the first seven lines are repeated in reverse order. Here is what I wrote:Her celestial husband is not terra bound as he makes…
Inside the Composition Book: The Stories We Tell
The summer before I entered 7th grade I wrote a book. I wrote it in one of those ubiquitous marble copy books that all American adults of a certain age will forever associate with school. But instead of writing my…
The Vanity of Memory
Somewhere deep in my memory, there is a carved mahogany vanity.Do they even make vanities anymore? I wonder. The name of the furniture presupposes its use and describes one of the attributes of all of the women who’ve sat before…
Making Amends: Ringing the Bells That Still Can Ring
Amends, he wrote. Please let me make amends to you. My program requires it. The 9th step says that we must make direct amends to people we have harmed except where to do so would injure them or others. I…