Photo by Terrye Turpin I hope everyone is safe and snug at home. I've given up the search for toilet paper. Instead I hear my mother's ghost warning me each time I approach the bathroom. Toilet paper must have cost more in the 70s. "Don't use so much! Stop spinning that roll!" Mom grew up … Continue reading Where Do You Go When You Can’t Go Out?
The Music You’ll Hear in Heaven
Photo by Janderson Tulio on Unsplash I wandered into the dark room at the museum and stepped through into another dimension. Sound surrounded me - soft voices lifting in song and sweet notes issuing from musical instruments. The experience of viewing The Visitors, a video art installation by Ragnar Kjartansson, haunted me long after I’d left the … Continue reading The Music You’ll Hear in Heaven
Searching for Santa
It’s Christmas Eve, and I’m looking for Santa. Not the jolly elf in red pajamas, my Santa is a six-inch tall ceramic bank. He’s just like the one my mom had, the one she saved quarters in all year to have money for Christmas. Mine doesn’t have quarters. It came without the rubber stopper at … Continue reading Searching for Santa
Freaks at the Fair
When I was seven years old, my parents lost me at the State Fair of Texas. Their last sight of me, I’d slipped into a crowd of folks shuffling into a garish tent on the midway. I imagine them watching as I stood in line, my hair done up in twin pony-tails in the style … Continue reading Freaks at the Fair
The Onion Capitol
The places we visit are never as perfect as they are in our memory. My grandmother’s house in Farmersville, Texas no longer exists. A remodeled version of the Dairy Queen I visited as a barefoot child sits beside the highway and still serves up chocolate dipped cones and cheeseburgers. You can see the Dairy Queen … Continue reading The Onion Capitol
How Sweet It Is
Photo by the Author We didn’t need twenty-five pounds of sugar, but I felt a small thrill of satisfaction as I lifted the plastic bag onto my cart. The sensation could have been a stab of pain from hefting the heavy sack. “What will we do with that much sugar?” My husband, Andrew asked. “I’ll … Continue reading How Sweet It Is
This is a War Machine
The USS Cavalla rests at Seawolf Park in Galveston, Texas. On June 19, 1944 she sank the Japanese carrier Shokaku, one of the warships responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor. Andrew and I climbed down the ladder into the sub, a giggling group of teenage girls behind us. The Cavalla, decommissioned in 1946, was … Continue reading This is a War Machine
What Falls From the Sky Does Not Strike Me
The author — Photo by her patient husband, Andrew Our rented Buick rocked as the tractor trailers and rock haulers zipped past on the highway. I gripped the door handle, certain a homicidal maniac steered each truck rushing by, intent on racking up another victim on their way to the West Texas oil fields. We had selected the … Continue reading What Falls From the Sky Does Not Strike Me
Meet Me at the Vanishing Point
Another version of me has dirt under her fingernails Photo: Geri Lavrov/Photographer’s Choice/Getty Images PlusIf another me exists in another universe, I picture her clad in a red gingham dress or blue denim overalls. She toils on a farm surrounded by corn and cows. This is the life I might have lived, had I followed the … Continue reading Meet Me at the Vanishing Point
A Bird in the Basket
Photo by Alvaro Daimiel on Unsplash I hadn’t planned on sharing the 650 square feet of space I called home. Andrew and I had reached the point in our dating life where he kept a spare toothbrush at my place and I had cleared out a shelf in my closet for him. I could barely fit … Continue reading A Bird in the Basket
