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My Long Overdue Talk with Mom
When your final illness ended and you were gone, I brought your ashes into my home. I placed them in an urn — one that would rest easily on a bookshelf or mantel, one that would be inconspicuous, that would blend in with my other belongings and perhaps go unnoticed by visitors. I decided to Read more
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“Betcha Can’t”: The Dare That Fed My College Romance
Tall and muscular, Jake had a ready laugh and boyish smile. An enticing blend of artist, musician, and athlete, he caught my eye during my freshman year of college. He and I were enrolled in some of the same courses, where we discovered that we had grown up near each other, just a few streets Read more
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Gear Up, Slow Down, or Cruise? My Quest for a Meaningful Retirement
I’m sitting in the community room at the public library. Beside me to my left: a seventy-three-year-old man whose wife is in a hospice unit facing end-of-life decisions. To my right: a sixty-four-year-old woman, still working but looking ahead to life beyond her career. We are at the library for an information session on Medicare. Read more
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A Good Reason to Use Bad Language
When I was growing up, the women in my family cursed. My mother and her sisters spewed white-hot streams of profanity that hissed and steamed on the air. Even my grandmother, an otherwise soft-spoken woman with a strong religious upbringing, kicked up a verbal ruckus when provoked. The women in my family cursed, but mainly Read more
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Send Me the Bill
I. What I Remember We were in a hurry. Mother always walked fast, but I struggled more than usual to keep up with her as we sped through the train station with her suitcase. She held my hand and dragged me along behind her, her oversized purse swinging from her shoulder, clunking into my head Read more
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On Teaching, Imposter Syndrome, and the Hazards of Homonyms
“I am a liar,” Tony said in my English composition class. To prepare for a writing assignment, I was leading my students in a discussion of identity markers: race, gender, socioeconomic status. As usual during our class sessions, Tony had been sitting slumped in his seat, arms folded over his chest, staring at me, smirking. Read more
Do you write about yourself and your experiences? Do you write about traumatic events in your life? Or, do you struggle to find time and motivation to write?
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