I’m Not Part of Me
Though part of me might wince at how bildungsroman this all is, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s where I am. Besides, aren’t we always “coming of age”?
Though part of me might wince at how bildungsroman this all is, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s where I am. Besides, aren’t we always “coming of age”?
For some reason it feels like I’m saying, “My favorite food is chicken nuggets,” or “I really like listening to Hanson while playing laser tag.”
Friends who I can count on to read my work and respond sincerely to it. Friends for drinking coffee, for studying, for drinking a glass of wine while playing board games.
After I managed to swim to the bottom of the pool to retrieve a brick, I lay in a puddle of chlorine and teal tile like a trauma victim.
But letting go of all those demands emptied me out, and the process of refilling with the right things—that’s what’s taking so much time.
After only a few generations of farming, the soil of one of the world’s most fecund agricultural areas—the Midwest—is practically dead.
One day, about two-thirds of the way through the school year, I woke up and realized that I had absolutely no idea what was going on in chemistry class.
This is why we remind each other of what we already know—so we can remember what it means: We might grieve now, but death won’t win.
The human imagination is a wonderful thing. It may have its greatest power in the mind of a child, building games out of nothing, but it never outlives its usefulness.
Anne Lamott quoted Barbara Johnson: “We are Easter people living in a Good Friday world.” Here’s the thing: in our Good Friday world, awful things happen.