“The Long Road Home”
“The Red Flower: Coming of Age”
“The Magic Years”
“A Gardeners Diary”
“My Little Man”
“Her Methodist Frill”
“The Red Flower: Coming of Age”
“The Magic Years”
“A Gardeners Diary”
“My Little Man”
“Her Methodist Frill”
“The Long Road Home”
Every few months, I climbed into my car and drove the thirty-five minutes south on the Garden State Parkway to cruise past our old homestead. My husband Peter and I had lived on this New Jersey farm for almost thirty years and raised our two sons here before moving to a quaint suburban community minutes away from Asbury Park and the Jersey shore.
Continue Reading…
“The Red Flower: Coming of Age”
I hated gym and those one-piece blue gym suits. They had the self-contained waistband, the baggy shorts, the snap front, and were a pain to climb into. They made even the most glamorous girls in phys ed look like little blue sausages. A chubby fifteen-year-old, I tried to stay out of that ridiculous blue get-up whenever possible.
Continue Reading…
“The Magic Years”
Without HalosIt’s a hot Kansas day. The poplar trees planted as a windbreak beside the house gather the light from above and funnel it down onto the patio. Bees flit through the roses climbing glossy white trellises. In the distance, my two brothers lie on cots inside the tent pitched near the grape arbor. The tent sides are rolled up and I can hear them giggling as they plan a grape spitting contest with the neighborhood kids. This is a venture which involves me if the can tear me away.
Continue Reading…
“A Gardeners Diary”
New Jersey MonthlyIt is June and the farm is beginning to show off all its new green growth. I have driven my green Volkswagen bus 2,000 miles cross-country from Denver to New Jersey to live with my old college boyfriend Peter, because he has acquired this 120-year-old farmhouse on fifteen acres. I have some odd notion that I would like to live a rural kind of life. More specifically, I want a garden.
Continue Reading…
“My Little Man”
The New York TimesI don’t know his name. I don’t know what he does every day as he walks along Route 9; he always looks occupied; sometimes his wagon is full — scrap pieces of wood, vegetables, corn. Often he walks alone.
Continue Reading…
“Her Methodist Frill” (Creative nonfiction)
Kansas City VoicesEmma places the hat carefully onto her head. She’d had her fine white hair clipped short and set in tiny curls yesterday at Jean’s House of Beauty in La Crosse. She watches herself in the filmy mirror as she pins the hat securely.
Continue Reading…