The surly flight attendant held the small black mic to her lips and advised us to keep our seatbelts fastened while the plane taxied to the gate. Nobody in their right mind would challenge this humorless woman. A moment earlier my heart jumped when our plane seemed to descend not toward a reassuring paved runway, but instead into the East River; from my seat I … Continue reading Reflection: Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to LaGuardia
I am sitting in a nail salon at a small, round table with a fan trained on my outspread fingernails, which are painted an appealing shade of pale aquamarine. There are three little piles of business cards in holders on the table, and because the staff seem intent on torturing me with this obscenely long drying ritual, I have plenty of time to scrutinize them. … Continue reading Christmas 2025, in the Books
Madame Chairperson had busied herself all morning with the Rolodex on the massive mahogany desk in her new office, just after she tired of fingering her brass nameplate. She’d pulled it closer, the better to spin the wheel thingummie and watch all the cards flutter. And because it turned both ways (a discovery that delighted her to no end), she had experimented with it, observing … Continue reading Morning Miniature: Madame Chairperson’s Dilemma
Over the course of the long holiday weekend I have fairly devoured this novel by Catherine Newman, whose main character and plot resonate with me in 10,000 kinds of ways. The setting for her story is a favorite summer vacation rental on Cape Cod where the protagonist-narrator, a menopausal mom, has returned for a week (the standard annual stay) with her husband and now-grown children, … Continue reading Reflection: Can We at Least Finish This Thing?
How could anyone be expected to do this without breaking down. The question had echoed inside her head for the last hour, since she first unbuttoned her cuffs, rolled up her sleeves, and gingerly lowered her aching joints to the floor. Now she sat cross-legged in front of an open plastic bin; condensation slowly crept down the geometric panels on a glass of iced tea … Continue reading Afternoon Miniature 6.22.25
During my early elementary school years in Memphis, Tennessee, seems like every child around me showed up to class at one point or another grinning ear to ear, eager to announce the arrival of a new infant sibling in the house. Then on a special afternoon that kid’s mama would step into our cinder-brick public school classroom holding the swaddled infant whilst the older brother … Continue reading Reflection: Siblings
Who are your people? probed the ancient woman, one hand on her waspy-thin waistline and the other sweeping a lock of white hair out of her eyes. It was an inquisition, the younger of the two realized, shifting her weight uncomfortably in the sweltering afternoon heat, and swinging a fidgety and irritable toddler to the other hip. While she sized up the elder, her mind’s … Continue reading Afternoon Miniature: Your People
Earlier Carole had tugged at the shirt that was a skosh too tight around her breasts, which resulted in an unattractive pucker stretching from one to the other. She knew it looked awful but decided it did not matter for fifteen minutes inside the grocery store. And anyway, the short-shorts she was wearing under it accentuated her long, sinewy leg line, exaggerated even more by … Continue reading Afternoon Miniature 5.4.25: Chance Encounter
Honey-golden, irregular cleaving, sticky, crunchy underfoot crust born of pine sap. The small rectangular wood rosin box tucked into a corner of the massive classroom, toted to the stage for theatre week, at once shimmering and powdery. Pliant dancer feet squeezed like gloved hands into satiny pointe shoes ripped, broken, and pieced back together just so, the shod feet standing in the box, wiggling around, … Continue reading Sensorial Memory: Inside Mom’s Dance Bag
“See that tree line on the ridge up there?” I shade my brow with one hand and squint into the late afternoon sunlight to look, our last afternoon in daylight saving time. Tomorrow morning we’ll wake to an earlier sunrise and a shorter day. “Yep.” “Now look to the right. See where the trees are missing?” Against the fiery orange western sky, the ridgeline hovers … Continue reading Reflection: O, Asheville
Carolina Thinklings 