Most of my life I’ve been pretty clueless. When someone has revealed that they’re sick or broke or a loved one has just died or their life is otherwise falling apart, I kind of panic. I don’t know what to do. I want to help, but I don’t want to imply that I think theyContinue reading “8 Ways to Help Someone Who’s Sick”
Tag Archives: family
The Truth
Whenever you get a movie by a postmodernist titled THE TRUTH (La Vérité), you know truth will be an uncertain thing, multiple and fragmented. This may sound grim, but in the latest film from Hirokazu Kore-eda it’s anything but. Warm and witty, piquant yet gentle, it might be just the film you’re looking for thisContinue reading “The Truth”
How LITTLE WOMEN Saved Me
On my tenth Christmas, I peeled back the wrapping paper to find a book about the size of a dictionary. The cover was printed with the image of a living room. Around a piano, five white women stood singing in the light of a hurricane lamp. Their dresses could easily be mistaken for curtains. TheContinue reading “How LITTLE WOMEN Saved Me”
On Father’s Day Weekend
My father kept an old Yamaha acoustic guitar in his bedroom. Sometimes I ran my child-round fingertips over the strings just to see if it was still in tune. It was, then. I whispered secrets into the sound hole, and it always whispered back. It smelled of dust and spruce and something metallic, like aContinue reading “On Father’s Day Weekend”
My Breakdown in a Bus Depot
And then I went to New York. If you have been asleep, New York will slap you out of it. I boarded the Q47 bus and watched the sunrise from the bus window, mentally reviewing Manhattan’s grid of streets and the carefully plotted route that would take me to the Hotel Chelsea for a nightContinue reading “My Breakdown in a Bus Depot”
Grandma
Out of all the places I’ve lived, only one has ever meant home. My grandparents’ house on South Fruitland Street. It’s not much to look at. Built in 1949, the house is a three-bedroom ranch. A white gable spans the front door and the bay window. My grandmother had the clapboard painted a powder puffContinue reading “Grandma”
Cutting the Cord
I now saw that talking to my parents was pointless. So instead, I typed them an email. I need to talk with you about things that happened in the past. I have a lot of memories I’m just trying to make sense of. I know no one’s perfect, and we all have made mistakes. ButContinue reading “Cutting the Cord”
The Breakup
As my love of Thailand grew, so did the glaring evidence of the problems in my relationship. I often woke in the morning to find Top already gone, leaving me to go sightseeing with his brother Bop. When Top did bring me along, everyone told him in Thai how beautiful I was, and he glowed.Continue reading “The Breakup”
Thailand
Top had booked his first visit home in three years, and I went with him. I had learned so much living above the Thai restaurant. And yet I had learned nothing at all. Thailand, I thought. Asia. More than 9,000 miles away. I expected freedom. I expected healing. For my relationship with Top. For myself.Continue reading “Thailand”
The Beginning of the End
A few months before my graduation, I came home after classes one day to find my parents in the living room. The lights had been shut off and the blinds drawn. The ivory sofa loomed gray in the dim light, and my father sat in the center of it like a king upon a dais,Continue reading “The Beginning of the End”
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