…the quiet of stealing hours from the night …of the early morning hours, when you wake, before sun, before sound …pierced only by the click-clack of keys that, for now, are typing the most dreadful first draft …of what might, one day, be a book…with a binding…that bears your name …the silent stir of your …
Happy New Year. I love New Year’s, as I love early mornings. For its promise and possibility. For its quiet reflection. For its gift of a blank slate. But I also love it for being a secular holiday we can all enjoy. For inspiring a common greeting we exchange on days like this when we allow our eyes to meet …
Before any trip, break, vacation, I feel uneasy and unsettled. On edge. I am, after all, a lover of the ordinary day. A creature of habit. A homebody steeped in ritual and routine. Now I’m sitting in the space of a sleepless night. Working through it with words. As the distance widens between home and away, …
Today, it’s raining. The lone desk lamp throws warm light on the yellow wall. A half-eaten bowl of Rice Chex sits to my right. I can hear the faint sound of clothes turning in the dryer downstairs, the commuter train in the distance, the slick rush of cars on the damp main road just beyond …
We were crowded in the elementary school gym on a 90-degree day with no A/C. We were told there would be babysitting; there wasn’t really. Our almost-kindergartners were whisked away…I was left behind to chase after my two younger boys, the sweat gathering on the nape of my neck as I cursed my black skinny …
Dina L. Relles 