Our house if full of quotes (candles and black yarn and bones) to honor the darkness and meditate on it. At first I thought this quote from Anne Carson was the darkest one– I wanted to find one law to cover all of living, I found fear. A list of my nightmares is the map […]
Category: Lifestyle
The moon
In the last hour of my drive from Denver to Kansas City I watched a waning gibbous moon rise in the east, yellow and huge just over my destination. A few days later, on the drive back to Denver: the reverse: the moon descended slowly through my windshield, unassuming in the still-lit blue sky. I […]
Romance
By Jean Sibelius is what I’ve been playing on the piano recently. My dad asked me why I liked it. Which was a good question I’d never thought about it before. I like the part where a fermata hovers boldly over a bar. Fermatas mean hold longer than normal–it’s at the player’s discretion. But this […]
Brain, music, memory
When I was a kid I played the piano a lot and for a long time. I was good. I got good. Then I grew up and I stopped. In New York City no one I knew I had a piano. Some people had keyboards but a keyboard could never do Chopin justice. It just […]
Nice things
A few years ago I dropped my grandma’s watch and broke the crystal. I was sad about it then and it still disappoints me when I look at it. But hey! Maybe this can be fixed I thought the other day. I took it to the watch repair shop and the people said it might […]
Thanks for coming!
I went to a wedding this weekend. It was outside under very tall trees. They served drinks out of a vintage trailer. I caught the bouquet! It came right to me and never hit the ground. The music was really loud so we smiled at each other, danced a little, and leaned in close to […]
Sleepover
I’ve been sleeping on couches recently. Family couches and friend couches. Usually someone offers me a bed or an inflatable mattress at least. But still I choose the couch. I like the chance, when I get it, to fall asleep in the middle of something. I like falling asleep to the gentle voices of other […]
Sleep patterns
I am not a back sleeper but for two months I slept like a corpse. On my back, arms crossed. If I needed to change things up maybe I would cross my legs at the ankles. It came surprisingly naturally to me. Maybe because I was so tired or maybe because we somehow find a […]
Pain scale
The doctors want to know: what’s your pain on a scale of one to ten? So you try to calibrate your scale. Nine and ten are unspeakable. Seven and eight, numbers you might actually use if you felt like you were dying. Like the time you got mono and strep at the same time in […]
Horcrux
I asked a lot of questions at my first post-op. Can I hike? Can I swim? Can I ride my bike inside? The answers: sure, tentatively yes, actually I would just wait. No bikes, no scooters, no skateboarding. (I’m flattered that I look like someone who skateboards.) Let your scar fully heal. Just don’t fall. […]
Anne Foster 