The Last Tuesday of the Year
December thirty-first. The Tuesday sessions end the same way they always do, gear returned or shouldered, the same ten seconds of standing near the exit while you decide if you fo…
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19 entries tagged #quietmoments.
The Conversation I Wasn't Supposed to Hear
October fourth. I was not planning to stay. The original plan was to pick up a coffee and walk home, the October air has that quality lately where walking feels like the right ans…
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Fourteen Minutes
August twenty-sixth. My grandmother called at seven-fifteen, which is when she always calls, because she has called at seven-fifteen on Friday evenings for as long as I can rememb…
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The Cord Was Still in There
June first. I opened the sketchbook to look something up, I want to say it was to check when I drew the windowsill gap, which would be a very me reason to go looking in a sketchbo…
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The Part Where the Habit Blinked
March sixteenth. The sub's name is something I still don't know. I heard it at the beginning of class and then it was gone, which is fair, because I spend most of the first five m…
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The Kitchen Floor
December first. I called Carol after dinner and somehow ended up sitting on the kitchen floor, back against the lower cabinets, wool socks on the tile. I'm not sure when I slid do…
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The Slot That Was Always Mine Until It Wasn't
June nineteenth. I didn't say anything to my manager. I'd been turning it over since Monday, the summer schedule, the weekend slot I've worked for three years, quietly reassigned…
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The Call and the Staying
March twenty-third. My aunt called during break and I picked up without thinking, which is not always what I do when I see her name. It was fine, she was calling to say nothing ur…
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Smaller Than I Remembered
February third. The photograph was never the point. I think I knew that somewhere around the second bus trip, when I got off at the stop and walked the block and stood in front of…
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The Particular Stillness
February twenty-seventh. There is a thing I do with my phone when I am thinking about something I am not ready to think about out loud. I hold it face-down, or I open it and look…
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After the Call
February sixteenth. Simone called her dad from the break room. I know because I was already there when she walked in, and she said, quietly, already dialing, "I'm just going to ca…
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What the Brain Does With That
November twentieth. There is a specific thing your brain does when you see someone you know somewhere you didn't expect them. It's not shock, exactly. It's more like, the room has…
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The Particular Quality of Fluorescent Light
October eighteenth. There is a specific kind of fluorescent lighting they use in community center lobbies, not harsh, exactly, but completely uninterested in flattering anyone. It…
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The Man Who Ordered Black Coffee and Wanted Nothing Else
June nineteenth. There was a man at the café this afternoon, the one on the corner I end up at when I don't have a plan, who ordered black coffee, sat down by the window, and did…
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The Username
November eleventh. There was a comment on an old post. Not the one people occasionally find, not the 'Why Did You Start It' post that Aunt Carol found two years ago, which still f…
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Just a Thing I Write
There was a draft sitting in my documents folder for, I want to say a few weeks, but honestly it was longer than that. I kept opening it, moving a sentence around, closing it agai…
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Her Name Took Up More Space Than Expected
Class ended at seven and I was the last one actually putting my notebook away. Not on purpose, I just had a lot of notes tonight and my handwriting got progressively worse toward…
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Forty Minutes in Any Direction
I didn't plan it. That's the part that made it work, I think. It was Thursday morning, post-July Fourth lull, the kind of week where everything feels slightly unscheduled, and I l…
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The Art of Sitting in the Yard and Calling It a Plan
There is a lawn chair in my backyard that has been there since I was probably twelve. It's the kind of plastic patio chair that leaves a grid pattern on the back of your legs and…
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