cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
I am familiar with goodbyes. I said goodbye to my innocence at 4-years-old. From ages 4 to 12, I buried my voice in an effort to extinguish the ongoing abuse and survive. By age 13 I had learned that my sadness engendered pity and my sexuality, attention. Male parents for whom I babysat groped for…
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She looked at me with tears in her eyes, as if she was seen for the first time. Between the tissue sopping up her wet face and deep sighs, she said, “I don’t know what I did wrong. I can’t escape his mental and emotional manipulation even though we aren’t even together anymore. I’ve been…
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The light has faded out of my eyes Where it once burned alive Until a series of moments I wouldn’t want Made me live them.
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“97, 98, 99, 100.” I pull my exhausted, 8-year-old body out of the pool, and collapse onto the warm concrete patio. Through the haze of chlorine fumes and low blood sugar, pride at my accomplishment revives me. Later I speak to my father, who is on a business trip, “I swam 100 laps”, I declare.…
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“It is hard for you, little one,” said Aslan. “But things never happen the same way twice.” —Aslan, the Lion, to Lucy, the child, Prince Caspian, C. S. Lewis Things never happen the same way twice, dear one. I am a thirty-one year-old woman (Jessie), I have been married to my husband (Mikey) for almost…
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