I have not talked yet about the flies. But they are so much part of what has happened, is happening, that any portrait of our collective misery is incomplete without them. They are the buzzing, maddening accompaniment to all our fears, all our sorrows. In the beginning, they invaded our city singly— that is, a few barely noticed droning little aerial grotesqueries, one alighting its bristled limbs on a streetlamp, another on the underside of the bookshelf, still another on someone’s bare arm— then in great black droves, altering the color and tone of the air.
At first, no one commented on them much because, in addition to having other matters to contend with, warmer weather always brought them in fairly considerable numbers into our city, even during ordinary years, and so they were nuisances that we all knew well.…
On my first solo bike tour, I could have been worried about a million things. For example, my inability to read a map. Or my tendency toward loneliness, which, if not cured quickly (by finding a sympathetic soul to jabber with), could lead to rather colorful anxiety attacks.
But who could fret on such a sparkling spring day? As I sailed out of Turku, Finland’s oldest town, on a fantastically wide bike path, my red panniers bulged with dark Finnish bread, Havarti cheese, and chocolate. I pointed my bike toward the Turku Archipelago, a cluster of 20,000-some islands off Finland’s southwest coast. There I’d explore via bridges and ferries, soaking in the Baltic seascapes and staying at family-run guesthouses.
You hand out names to the hummingbirds that squabble a few feet away—on the patio, perching and racing past like fighter pilots, divebombing the red plastic feeder that drips and sways on a hook.
We eat breakfast and we watch as sparrows greedily vacuum the food you pour into a shallow dish each morning. And when they catch us peeking at them, they scatter, splashing seeds—sunflower, safflower, millet, milo, flax, cracked corn.
I’m off to my next meeting, you say.
We work a dozen feet apart nowadays. And you haul it all—laptop and mouse, notepad, and books— to the bedroom. I follow you with a chair to the place where you attend these meetings (and job interviews). Where we plot our escape every night. Alone together.…
When my mom died my sister was on her first vacation without the kids. I didn’t know what to do, so I kept everything the same.
My sister had gone to the beach for a peaceful yet rambunctious long weekend with her girlfriends. Four busy women got their schedules and sitters to align and declared they deserved a break. They deserved to be the only ones with needs for a few glorious days. I couldn’t have called screaming just as they put their luggage on freshly made hotel beds.
My sister and I always email pictures of our trips to our mother. We could be finishing up a 14 mile hike at the bottom of the earth and we can’t wait to get wifi and email our mom all about it.…
The earliest of my drawings that live in my mother’s mental Proof of Nicole’s Childhood Brilliance collection include crooked crayon stick figures depicting my mom (with a long Raw Umber-colored hair flip), my brother (short Maize fringe), me (Lemon Yellow shoulder-length bob), my cat Caesar (Peach fur)—and my imaginary friend Mona (Violet-Red corkscrew curls with metallic Silver fingers). Those silver fingers? Knives. Yes, I palled around with an invisible girl with knives for fingers when I was five years old. And one of my earliest memories of my father—perhaps the only good memory of him that I possess—is him bundling my mother, brother, and I into the back of his black van and taking us to see The Exorcist when I was around the same age.…
‘There used to be a house here,’ Mama said, pointing at the small shop that now sells vegetables and fruit.
‘When?’ Arjuna scoffed. ‘When you were a child?’
‘Yes,’ said Mama, glaring at him. ‘Which was only about thirty years ago!’
‘Only!’ Arjuna said, clutching at his forehead and staggering into the path of an oncoming trishaw.
I shoved him out of the way and the trishaw man glared at him, blaring his horn at the same time for dramatic effect.
‘I need to buy some veggies. Come on.’ Mama crossed the road in front of yet another trishaw and went inside the small shop. We followed reluctantly. Coming out of the hot December sun into the darkness of the shop, I felt claustrophobic. The fruits all smelled extremely sweet and I could see flies buzzing around a papaw that looked ever so slightly off.…
I am the bug finder. With the sow-bugs, jooper beetles, nightcrawlers, and dead bumble bees I find, I’ll catch the biggest fish my father has ever seen. We’ll eat it for dinner and everyone’s bellies will be full. I turn over stones and check the wet mud for the worms. The cinder blocks in the garden bed are best, but I wait until Mom is on the phone to turn them over. Then I place them black carefully so she won’t know. I don’t think, when she sees the fish I’ll bring home, that she’ll mind me turning up the wall of her garden bed. I’ve got my pole ready by the door and I’m full of energy because today is a good day for bug finding.…
