“If thoughts can corrupt language, language can also corrupt thoughts.” George Orwell — Did you really believe the “thought police” and the “word police” were mere concepts in Orwell’s dystopian fiction, or that Huxley’s Brave New World was distant? I have read history and taught nearly every banned book. However, when Salman Rushdie referred to the censorship of Dahl’s books as “absurd,” I…

I Never Saw Her Old; She’s in my Mirror Daily — This is the room which stood empty, as you debated the price of the house. Bleak white walls waiting to be owned again. I wondered why buy a house, now? This is the room whose windows looked out into the tiny manicured backyard which held your sandbox, to “keep in touch…

Time stopped — She turned. I looked. Anonymous three-year-old in a red coat. That's all and everything. Blond blur; a watercolor. Her dad takes her hand. And I remember so much all at once. A tiny hand (bird-like bones) reaching up for mine. It’s Natalie. No, it’s my Meghan. A granddaughter: Emmy? It’s universal. Time passing like a cloud shifting shape. Past. I can’t swallow, a hard lump, like a rock, in my throat. Tears form. This fleeting sweet life. Thank you God. Brevity. Green light.

“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.” — Will Rogers It sounded worse than it was, when Penny fell down the tile stairs today. Like a plastic laundry basket bump bumping, step-by-step all the way to the bottom. She recovered her dignity in seconds… her head held high, walking on wobbly legs. My three-year-old granddaughter said: “Penny is a really…

“Weren’t You Bored?” “Ga-goo, I mean Grandma,” saying word grandma was still a little forced and stilted in her mouth. Claire didn’t want to use her baby name for me anymore. “Can we go somewhere fun before we go home? Please?” Those eyes! “Where? There’s no place to go.” Strip malls lined each…

A Child’s Morning Music: The Opposite of a Lullaby — Last night’s dreams fade when that first faint tinkle of silverware drifts upstairs. Before the stray rays of sunlight filter through our bedroom curtains, I hear the clink of forks and spoons Precisely knowing the drawer where the spoons nestle. More sounds drift upstairs: the predictable slide of plates stacked, one on top…

“You Can’t Go Home Again” — Thomas Wolfe Sometimes when I was little, we all went to church together, the four of us: Mommy, Daddy, Jennifer and me. Most Sundays, my mother didn’t go. Grammy Jones always said, “Your mother only goes to church on Christmas and Easter.” Her face would turn like the wicked witch of the…

An Animal’s Nature — I’m sorry I yelled at you for eating that dove this morning. I know you were following instinct and couldn’t resist inhaling it, feathers and all. The dove was so lovely in flight and form. I wanted to see it longer, but I understand.

Summer Vacation 1969 — “I’m not going with you to those stupid hot tubs. This whole place is too weird! I can't stand California and all these hippies out here anyway. You could've left me at home with Dad if you hadn't made him leave,” I said, in my meanest voice. Mom would say…