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He poured his second, maybe third vodka tonic. He didn’t even look at me as he eased his six-foot-something frame through the sliding glass doors onto our deck. His words grazed by me as he sat down in the folding chair placing his drink on the small table between us, next to his worn copy of Machiavelli’s, The Prince.
Read MoreI’ve never seen the rooster next door that crows at dawn. And during thunderstorms. And during the ubiquitous fireworks—this is Oaxaca, after all. In the afternoon, when he’s tired of scratching at the same dirt hoping to find something different, but it’s just the same fucking dirt, he crows a little louder.
“I hear you,” I whisper over the fifteen-foot wall that separates us. “I feel you.”
Read MoreFor twelve years, I was an elementary school teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
One hundred eighty school days each year.
Five years teaching kindergarten.
Six years teaching fourth grade.
One year teaching fifth grade.
The simple definition of teacher is one who teaches. But the reality of what it means to be a teacher is so much more.
Read MoreI love to be as close to people as possible. I guess it’s something about security.
Read MoreI often wonder at the definition of first love. Many acquaint it to different people, for different reasons. Could I acquaint it to the first crush I ever had? Well then that would have to go to Orlando Bloom as Legolas in The Lord of the Rings. Do I count it as the first heart pounding, late night longing, tear-jerking crush I ever had? Well, that would have to go to a boy named Chase at the tender age of twelve, whom I was infatuated with for quite some time. Though he never liked me back, and while it was fun to crush on and spend nights talking about him with my girlfriends, I don’t think I could call it love. No. My first love belongs to my first boyfriend.
Read MoreVinegar-soaked fish and chips in a London pub, our families escaping the summer heat in 2006. You, me, your brother, my sister, all of us in a dark wood booth beside a window. English bric-a-brac, the smell of Guinness. In the spring, we’d both graduated from the University of Oklahoma and turned twenty-two within months of each other, which meant we’d known each other half our lives.
Read MoreThere’s an old Hebrew proverb that says before a child is born, the angel Gabriel whispers the secrets of the world in their ears. He tells them everything about God, life, love, the universe. Then he kisses them on the forehead, the child is born, and they begin to forget all the wisdom that was granted to them.
Read More“Like, would that string really have stayed on her finger for fourteen years?” Lindsey asks, and I laugh in the carefree manner typically brought about by cheap vodka.
“Well, it’s magic string,” I respond, “because it’s infused with love.”
We continue to watch, a bowl of popcorn between us, buzzing on the fruit-flavored Smirnoff I am finally able to buy legally now that I’ve just turned twenty-one. It is summer; the semester has ended; we are each home from college.
Read MoreWhen we were young and budding, we smiled as the girl’s body began to change. She was a skinny little thing without an ounce of fat or a wiggle to her bum.
Read MoreFive years after my dad kicked me out, I was sitting in a swivel chair around a large oval table with ten other students in an Abnormal Child Development class. At twenty-one, I’d found my way into being a graduate student at Bank Street College of Education. Our teacher looked somber as she introduced the evening’s topic. “Tonight, we’ll be talking together about Adverse Childhood Experiences.
Read More“Why are we here?” Karl asks and sinks back into the floral, wing-backed chair. His lower legs jut straight out of the seat.
“To dress Dad’s body for the viewing.”
I see Rob’s family arriving.
Ansel goes on a hunt for funeral home candy. Barely-a-teenager, he returns with slump posture and announces, “No candy!”
“Darn it,” Helena, my cheeky tween says, pretending to be angry. She gauges Ansel’s woeful expression and laughs.
Read MoreOnce, I read a letter I wrote to you out loud in a slam poetry open mic. I wasn’t intending on speaking that day but now that I look back, I probably saw myself in the poets, songwriters, and artists who were barely older than me but just as weary: They’ve spent half their young lives chasing love or at least the thrill of writing about it, and you know me, you’ve always known me. Who am I to deny myself a group like this one?
Read MoreI have been on many, many dates, including an abundance of first and only dates. I thought I had experienced most first date repertoires—coffee dates and dinner dates, exciting dates and boring dates, dates to the theater and dates to the comedy club, dates that led to relationships and dates that came to screeching halts midway. I’d been on first dates with sixty dollar steaks and first dates with six dollar burgers. I’d been on first dates with lawyers and professors and police officers and firefighters. I’d even been on first dates with married people, unbeknownst to me, of course.
Read MoreTwenty years ago I was awakened in the middle of the night by a call from my father. My sister Shelley had been hit in a head-on vehicle collision by an elderly man who had driven the wrong way on the interstate for twenty miles. Shelley had been Christmas shopping in Springfield that night and was heading home at the time of the accident. Hazy, I asked my dad, “Did Shelley make it?” The most cavernous “no” I’ll ever hear in my life followed.
Read MoreWhen I returned to Tehran for the first time, twenty years after my family’s escape from the Islamic Theocracy, I was in love. I can’t write an exhaustive list of what I was in love with, because I was in love with everything. I was in love with the taxi drivers. The surly ones. The quiet ones. The inquisitive.
Read MoreI live in the midst of Marias, from the maternal to the eternal. My nonna, Maria Grazia, with whom I spent much of my childhood, lost three children before she had my uncle and my mom, Maria Gaetana. My days are bookended with calls to my mom: Seven in the morning, post coffee and yoga, and seven in the evening, as my day slows.
Read MoreA shirtless man hollers at the top of his lungs, creating chaos in the already jam-packed Wan Chai market. The crowd disperses to the sides, allowing him to barge through with his metal cart of carcasses. As he passes, he releases the scent of sweat, unwashed hair, and rot.
Read MoreThe first beer is easy. You meet in your writing class one year before his wedding. After the first class of introductions and favorite authors, a few of your new classmates go to the local bar. He comes along, though he says very little, keeping a fresh cigarette always lit.
Read MoreAfter we dated for a few months, Miguel told me that when he saw me for the first time he immediately thought, “I hope she’s single and speaks Czech.” Only one was true.
Read MoreI drove Bennet to the airport as he left our six-week-old marriage for his nine month tour of duty in Vietnam. He was dressed in a clean starched Army uniform. I was dressed in dread. After waving to the plane until it was a tiny dot in the overcast sky, I walked back to my car feeling as if he had died.
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