Monthly Archives: January 2013

Happiness

I remember the optimism of going home to someone. And how, months after the divorce, a part of me still lived back there on Roy Street. Waking to the sunrise in my attic room and thinking it was really from the second-story bay window there. How grief and change can displace one like that. AndContinue reading “Happiness”

Runaways

I come from a family of runners. My grandfather to California, my father north to Washington, a great-grandmother west from Virginia, my mother south to Hood River. We steal away to other towns, take on other names. But always, we run. My Grandpa Ellis and I both learned to slip out the back door. QuietContinue reading “Runaways”

On Death and Defiance

A few years back I attended a reading by Carolyn Jessop who had escaped a fundamentalist Mormon community. Piled her children in a van in the middle of the night and made a run for it. She’d written her memoir, published as Escape (2008), and now was reading at Third Place Books. She had receivedContinue reading “On Death and Defiance”

Let Yourself Feel It

People look at me and think it’s my rage I need to get in touch with. But it’s not the rage I’m afraid to feel. It’s the grief. To get through this wall, I have to drop my sword and go into the breach—into the darkness—unarmed. But there’s so much grief in there that I’mContinue reading “Let Yourself Feel It”

The Dance of Perfectionism

The pianist rests his fingers on the ivory keys. He locks eyes with my teacher. She mouths the words. One, two, three— They nod on the four. And the studio fills with a high note that rings along the barre and into my fingertips. A Chopin nocturne rolls through the sunlit air. I push aContinue reading “The Dance of Perfectionism”

Extreme Sport: Facing Your Fears

So I’ve been on a writing retreat with my novel the last few days and am glad to get back to blogging! And from the quiet space of that retreat, I return to say yet again: one of the most terrifying things about the artistic process is its vulnerability. If you’ve ever seen The King’s Speech,Continue reading “Extreme Sport: Facing Your Fears”

The Path of Greatest Resistance

I’ve noticed whenever I start writing a new scene, I feel an initial discomfort. Something in me resists writing it. It’s not a fear of the blank page. It’s something deeper. More like the fear of an empty mind. The discomfort of not knowing what to say. Like the cocktail party where you don’t knowContinue reading “The Path of Greatest Resistance”

Stacking Stones

Library stacks are underappreciated. People come, they browse, they select, they leave. Dusty and solitary, books are left to their quiet existence on the shelves. But I’ve worked in a library for eight years, and I’m telling you–it’s not like that. The stacks are, for me, as sacred and meditative a space as any ofContinue reading “Stacking Stones”

The Middle of Nowhere

“But what happens if you leave?” I was 21 years old and having a hypothetical discussion with my anthropology professor. He knew I was Mormon. Knew I had a complex relationship to my faith. And though we were talking about community in a general sense, he knew I was thinking of leaving it. He shrugged.Continue reading “The Middle of Nowhere”