reframing femininity
I had a meeting at a familiar hotel last week. We entered the parking lot in the same way, from the same angle that the unmarked minivan I was in had cornered the sex buyers so many years ago. My body flinched as it remembered the look in the buyers’ eyes, the slouched shoulders of…
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(for Judy) I may not be firstborn, nor am I male. Yet I’m a member of your Levitical tribe. Ordained before you, a minister just like my father. And in his image, I speak light into darkness.
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A nervous shudder ran through my body when I saw his name in the subject line of the email. I braced myself for some kind of ploy. I rushed to make sense of things in my mind. Was he reaching out wanting to make things right or to humbly apologize? I quickly knew the…
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I am hypersensitive and therefore unable to take in much news or social media. As much as I want to be educated about what is happening in the world, I have learned that the best way I can be a part of the solution to the problems that are breaking open all around is to…
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Victor and I are having lunch together when suddenly our conversation is muted by the loud rumble of a train. We feel the tremors of the building shake in response to the passing locomotive and wait for the train to pass. We have been apart from one another due to a season of unexpected hurdles…
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I open my top drawer and fumble under my socks and bras until I feel the folded notebook paper. The edges are worn down and smudged, but it is the only piece of paper hidden away, so I know it is the list. As I unfold the decade-old page, I feel secretive and young, looking…
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Dear Younger Self, I’m sitting in my living room with a deeply affectionate boy in my arms and another sweet boy growing safe inside my body. I can’t help but be curious about who you were so long ago. Were you anything like this stubborn, imaginative two-year old who is now leaping off the couch…
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“No one listened to me, so I stopped using my voice.” My friend’s words disappeared into the animated discussion filling the room, but I reached out to catch them. It was an honest admission that needed to be received by another. I’m listening, I thought. Yet, I knew she was referring to a historic dismissal…
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