For the life of me, I can’t remember what the fight was about. Needing space on one side, needing affirmation on the other. A push and pull until someone ran and someone else gave chase. The things I remember – the gut punch feeling in the morning when she said it was over. The attempts…
Category: Life
And Everything in Between
On Wednesday, January 6th, I woke up early-ish, ate breakfast, and sat down to write. I had read an article about the link between narcissistic mothers and complex PTSD in their daughters/children. I was engaged to a woman who suffered from something close to complex PTSD and had a difficult relationship with her mother. I…
I Get by with a Little Help from My…
For most of my adult life, I’ve never really had that close, everyday type of friendship with someone other than a romantic partner. I joke that I don’t have any friends – but it’s more of an uncomfortable cover-up and slight admission of truth than it is a joke. Way back in high school, I…
In This Very Moment
Last night I sat by the warm light of a table lamp reading, thinking, and clicking and unclicking a pen. It, the pen, had a push button on the top, and a release button on the side. Push the top, click, the pen appears. Push the side release, click, the pen recedes. I appreciated the…
If Only in My Dreams
I’ll be home for ChristmasYou can plan on mePlease have snow and mistletoeAnd presents by the tree I got out two frying pans and a mixing bowl along with the bacon, eggs, and brioche and asked Alexa to play Christmas music. The first song to play was the Bing Crosby version of “I’ll Be Home…
Christmas Eve 2020
I’ve been staring at a blank screen / “page” for about 20 minutes. Nothing. It’s Christmas Eve and doesn’t feel like it. I feel like anything I write should be full of gratitude – as though the season demands it. And I think this year a lot of people are struggling to muster up gratitude….
Social Media as a Toxic Relationship: It’s Complicated
I have a love / hate relationship with social media. I think a lot of people do. It’s a thing I love to hate and hate to love. I love that I find out about things: concerts, events, and what’s going on in the lives of friends and family. I love that I get three…
Snow Day
Growing up, and living most of my life, in eastern Pennsylvania just outside of Philadelphia, I am no stranger to the words snow day. As a kid, those words were magical and freeing. An unexpected day off. A mini holiday. I can remember listening to the radio as they called the school closing numbers, or…
Haul Out the Holly
I knew I consolidated (purged, donated, got rid of) some of my holiday decorations before I moved to Memphis. It wasn’t until the tree was up and I had searched through all of my unpacked possessions (three or four times) that I realized how much I had consolidated. I no longer had a star or…
Silences So Deep
There are silences so deepyou can hearthe journeys of the soul,enormous footstepsdownward in a freezing earth. John Luther Adams A couple of days ago NPR ran a short portrait of composer John Luther Adams. I knew nothing about Adams. Aside from what they reported, most of which I’ve already forgotten, I still know nothing about…
Acknowledgments
…and to my wife, Beth. She knows how much. That’s the last line in the acknowledgments at the beginning of a book of poems I was about to read. In the acknowledgments, a few well-known poets are mentioned, and Joe Salerno is called irreplaceable, but Beth… well, she knows how much. Stephen Dunn wrote, “The…