Featured: Week of Dec. 17
As the year winds down, we turn to reflection, as we assess the year that passed and anticipate the one yet to come. This week’s contributors use personal introspection to reach insights about past and possible future behavior. In the essay “A Brief Consideration” by Charles Sanft, the speaker contemplates the idea of living life twice: once cautiously and once with abandon. In the essay “Merit Badge” by Karen Fayeth, a woman contemplates body image on a Thursday work commute. The poem, “The fresh and promising morning” by Robert Phelps, explores the...
Read MoreThe fresh and promising morning
Take my hand. First, tie your shoelaces. Inhale all that can be. Fill your capacious lungs with the breath of every promise. Each is yours. Geraniums wild in flamenco ruffle, teased into some mysterious preen, pastel chins high, arrogantly Andalusian, mesmerized by the collective hum of my workaholic bees, hysterical planters of the sun. They are mine and dance for me. In all the spaces that are empty, know that it is you who stand inchoate. You are my filler of...
Read MoreMerit Badge
The alarm clock rings, and I discover that releasing my weary body from the comfort of my pillow-top-memory-foam bed is plenty challenging. Add the indignity of a workday, and it’s turned into the sort of Thursday where both my head and my spirit hang a little low. Feeling bulky and running late, I decide to stop off for a paper cup of overpriced coffee, which feels like a happy little incentivizing present, like giving a kid candy for using the toilet. It’s a neighborhood joint with one of those cutesy names that plays off the concept of coffee. As though coffee were a concept instead...
Read MoreA Brief Consideration of Life
Based on the Decision-Making Processes of the Ancient Persians as Reported by Herodotus Herodotus, the historian, wrote that, “If an important decision is to be made, [the ancient Persians would] discuss the question when they are drunk, and … the next day and while sober.” [1] This has stuck in my mind ever since I read it, for this is how I’d like to live my life. I don’t mean making decisions like this, discussing – or even just thinking over – everything twice. Wise as the Persians may have been. I’d like to live my life twice, once sober and once...
Read MoreFeatured: Week of Dec. 10
After a longer-than-expected break over Thanksgiving — thanks to a persistent cold that’s finally gone — this week’s contributors help us make the transition from late fall to winter. Michael Lee Johnson’s poem, “Sundown, Fall,” depicts a brilliant fall day with the first inklings of fall. Lyn Lifshin’s poem, “Late November (I), ” captures how quickly the seasons can change. Lyn Lifshin’s poem, “Late November (II),” evokes the cyclical way both memories and seasons...
Read MoreLate November (II)
Today in Virginia, unseasonably cold, high only in the mid 30’s. I think of a night drive from Austerlitz an hour north to bring in my plants, early September. The sky tangerine, guava and teal. My own house strangely quiet, my cat at my mother’s. When I think of a night I drove from Austerlitz to bring in the plants, my mother young enough to swoop up suitcases, my cat, I was looking for someone. “Aren’t you glad you still have me?” my mother purred. The cat I got after that one, now going on 21, the ice yesterday a...
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