I’ve been at this for four years and counting. In early 2016, a medical provider ordered me to stop all work, and I was put on extended medical leave without pay. A few months later, my boss and I called it quits. After all, it was my second medical leave in six months. So IContinue reading “Nine Ways to Cope When You’re Stuck Inside”
Tag Archives: loneliness
The Fetishization of Girlhood
I first realized that men look at girls as sexual objects on the day of my kindergarten graduation. Our teacher had set the theme as a Hawaiian luau (yes, cultural appropriation was all the rage in the 1980s). The girls had made skirts of green paper streamers to wear over our swimsuits as well asContinue reading “The Fetishization of Girlhood”
When Death Seems Best
After losing god, my community, and my reputation, I now also faced the prospect of losing my family. To leave the Mormon church is not a small thing. Many of us who leave, leave with nothing. Not our friends. Not our family. I simply was not ready for this final loss. You might think thatContinue reading “When Death Seems Best”
An Evening at the Frye
Last Wednesday night I attended The Stranger’s Night of Genius for Literature. One out of a five-week series recognizing Seattle’s best of the best in film, music, the visual arts, performance, and literature, the event could go one of two ways. Maybe people would shake hands and introduce themselves to their neighbors, like passengers onContinue reading “An Evening at the Frye”
Something Like Family
Every year in June, one block south on Midvale Avenue, the parents throw a big birthday bash for their little boy. This year it was a mariachi bouncy castle. Latino children streamed down the street for hours, in twos and threes, black hair bobbed in bowl cuts, their mothers close behind, arms swinging, dressed inContinue reading “Something Like Family”
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”
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”
In the World But Not of It
Some of my friends–especially those with children–envy the quiet time I have to myself. One friend sank into the cushions of my bamboo chair and listened to the rain drum like fingertips against my attic ceiling. “It must be so nice,” she said. “All this time to write.” No voices. No one competing forContinue reading “In the World But Not of It”
The Loneliness of Nonconformity
Edward Scissorhands (1990) is perhaps the quintessential fairy tale of the artist. In Edward’s quest for belonging, we can all find something of ourselves. Isolated and undeniably different, he is willing to give up his scissor-hands to be more like everyone else. He smiles with sweet, earnest boyishness at those who ask if he’d likeContinue reading “The Loneliness of Nonconformity”
The Trailer Park MFA 
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