I know a mama who is terrified of sending her first-born child to college. Also, she is overjoyed – though, these are not the words she uses. These precise words belong to someone else (we’ll get to that), but they apply here, too. I ran into her, this mama, several weeks ago at the neighborhood…
The good earth.
The impetus for the experiment was a note from my friend Frank, who will be surprised, I suspect, by this news, mostly because he sent the note more than two years ago, but also because he will be generally surprised (though, I hope, not annoyed) to find himself mentioned here. Frank lives mostly on the…
I know a mama.
Last we were together (three weeks ago? four?), we were talking about seeing and being seen. You are thinking, perhaps, that my memory is dodgy, that I’ve forgotten about the Frye boot story in between. What you don’t know is that I wrote the letter to The Frye Company at the end of February, weeks…
An open letter to The Frye Company.
Dear friends at Frye, A long time ago, around the time my first child was born, I adopted a simple, highly efficient approach to footwear: sandals from April 1 to September 30; boots from October 1 to March 31. I am a sensible, practical, predictable sort of woman in this way. Boots being a staple…
Look, now.
There are few, if any, things as full of pure joy as the squeals of bubbly delight from a baby playing peek-a-boo. When my son was little, long before he could walk, this was an instant and endless source of entertainment, closing my hands over my face, opening them like doors, and saying, “peek-a-boo; I…
Don’t forget to write.
I caught a nasty cold in Seattle, and it was – by and large – my own fault. It’s possible you’re wondering, “what was she doing so far away from Memphis?” and I’ll tell you. But first I must give credit where credit’s due. The reason I got a cold was that I failed to…
The comfort of familiar things.
I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo. If we know each other, in real life, then this revelation may be shocking. If we know each other very well, though, then it’s possibly not unexpected. I have been thinking about it, a tattoo, though not terribly seriously, for longer than I’ll admit, even here. Tattoos, like…
Happy.
After her fifth or sixth miscarriage, my mother, resigned to the reality that a baby might not be in the cards, went with my father to the animal shelter and came home with a puppy. Without much debate they named the small, black-and-white ball of fur Happy, partly because the dog’s mouth was shaped in…
