time | Dina L. Relles

This Is 35

Dina L. Relles

07/20/2015

Thirty-five is the rhythm of everyday life. It’s seeing someone and thinking, I knew you well once. It’s knowing where you are happiest—but how to cope when you can’t be there. Thirty-five is realizing you’ve lived twice as long as the counselors caring for your kids at camp. It’s getting dizzy on the roller coasters …

Fall Shift

Dina L. Relles

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10/14/2014

Little He stands perched on the top step of the hallway staircase and hurtles his soft, round body into space, trusting with full faith that my arms will find him. Middle His father reprimands him for toying with a fragile keyboard. Ashamed, he approaches me with his head hanging low, face contorted into a silent pre-cry. He burrows …

A Discarded Desk

Dina L. Relles

16 comments

06/16/2014

We stood together on the stoop, the boys and I, peering out as the trash truck sunk its merciless teeth into my mother’s 50-year-old desk—the one I had used since college and painted pale yellow and slate blue during senior year. The one that always held my most cherished notebooks. It had only two drawers, …