Living Deliberately | Dina L. Relles

Leaving a Trace

Dina L. Relles

12/30/2015

I found myself on a flight to California the other day to visit family. As we boarded the aircraft, touching our fingertips to the fuselage, these could be my last steps on earth, I think, and then again as we slowly taxi down the runway, these, my last moments in life. Morbid, maybe, but I …

when search meant finding something in the real world

Dina L. Relles

18 comments

06/18/2015

I’ll spend much of this summer at my alma mater overnight camp with my three sons. I’ll work in the front office while the boys enjoy programming designed for staff kids. Each day, we’ll step outside to the dewy chill of early morning air. Come nightfall, we’ll huddle under fleece blankets in a modest bunk–two rooms …

lackluster

Dina L. Relles

16 comments

04/23/2015

It was a dingy corner of a gym at a local community center during a simple 6th birthday party. I was chasing down the two-year-old, an interloper on the kindergartner’s birthday circuit, amidst hardened gum stains and up and down rubber-lined steps set against linoleum flooring. The building was dated—40s? 60s?—and I drank in that …

say it in life

Dina L. Relles

24 comments

03/19/2015

I wonder if Lisa Adams knew that Dani Shapiro viewed her Twitter timeline as a brave and unconventional work of memoir. Perhaps she did. And I hope so. But the thought rattled around in my mind during this morning’s shower. In 7th grade, they called me fake. And I was. I know now (and probably did then) that …

This Is the Village It Takes

Dina L. Relles

6 comments

08/31/2014

I’m standing on a stretch of grass outside the camp’s dining hall during the weekly Wednesday evening cookout. My watermelon-stained hands struggle to free a wipe from its package. My oldest nags at my feet for a third cookie. And dammit, where is my middle son? Just then, my stroller tips over. You help me …