By the time I saw the geese, my throat burned. I cry often, but I rarely sob. Not like this. When a child throws a tantrum, apparently one way to end it is by mirroring their behavior — wail with them. Shock them into self-awareness. The geese’s shrill honking had a similar effect on me. I am not a wild bird. I am enjoying a nice walk. I am in the suburbs. This is not 42nd Street, hours after midnight. How dare I treat it that way.
Read MoreTwo Januaries ago, I was leaving a cafe by my office after a long day of work. I struggled to open my umbrella against the downpour outside. Before the door shut behind me, I felt a hand at my arm and heard someone say, “Pardon me?”
Read MoreIt is the spring of 1913, and crowds are gathering, dispersing, being swept away. In March, the Great Miami River unlearns its geography, rolls its shoulders. People congregate on the tops of houses and trees, or what’s left of them, and wait, and watch.
Read MoreIn elementary school, I learned how to knit in a closet-like room every weekend with five or six other girls. On the first day, I grabbed a corner of the space for myself, wedged between the door and the wall, as the others sat shoulder to shoulder around a low wooden table. A large window let in a square of white sunlight that roamed over our hands. Our teachers loomed behind us. I remember them as pale shadows, smelling faintly of dried peppers and cooking oil.
Read MoreSuspended, a thin stroke of railroad splits the cityscape. From the right, a train cuts across the sky, purple light blinking through each window. No stars, no clouds, nowhere else to look. Sitting here, stuck between an overly cautious minivan and a looming semi, as my lungs fill with fumes and the dry air of late February, for a few moments all I feel is bliss.
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