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CALENDAR
As a child I lived next door to a calendar,but not the kind mother always hungon the wall next to the refrigerator, two,one for school events and the obligationsattendant on parenthood and the otherfor holidays, and adult social events,the important one she’d say whenshe thought we couldn’t hear.My calendar was Mrs. Kanutsu,the woman next door,…
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SHARING
It wasn’t exactly what you wanted, butyou probably wouldn’t have been all that upset.It was all about you, but not for you, thatcomes later, and we know you’ll be pleased.This one was for some of us who needed thisto be able to keep going, to keep from lookingonly back, into the darkness that is our…
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ANYWHERE BUT
I was twelve at the time, would havechosen to be anywhere but there.I hated visiting her at home, but thistook my disgust to a whole new level.We were never close, never would be,she so old, so old world, so unlikeanyone I had known, so like the womensitting outside the old hotels on South Beachwaiting for…
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THE EDGE OF DREAMS
On the razor edge of dreamsthe periphery of consciousnessa face appears, and I am left to wonderwho this person is, who he might be.At first he is a childwith a pixie cut, a bowl placedover the head, the bangs cutwithout considering the face peering outand others peering in.But, as sleep washing the lastsands of consciousness…
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ROCK AND HARD PLACE
The hardest age by faris the one where you are stuckin the middle, children below,parents above, and utterly nohope of escape from the vise.Things your mother could do effortlesslynow seem impossible for her, and thosethings now need doing immediately.Your children, ever wise at creatingnovel approaches to anything they wantin life regardless of your opinion,suddenly cannot…
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NAME IT
Aunt Tzipporah hated her name,detested it really, came closer to the truth.“What the hell were my parents thinking?”she said, “like being Jewish in West Virginiaisn’t going to be hard enough.On a good day I got away with being Zippy,but you try spending your Junior year in high schoolhearing “Hey Zipper” or having some jerkcome up…
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NOT TWICE
It is said that you can never go home againpresuming, of course, that you have left at some point.The fallacy of this statement is apparent,for there is often nothing preventing your return.What would make the statement accurateis that you can never go home againto exactly the same home you leftfor your leaving alters the place…
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TUESDAY TRUTH: THE SPIDER
Several things you need to understand. First, and foremost, a waterspout is a term no one around here has used in centuries, unless you mean a tornadic columnar vortex of water, and trust me, we spiders avoid those like the plague. Shocking, I know, but with eight legs we cannot swim. At best some of…
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DIG IT
He started digging early in the morning,and hoped that by lunch, he’d be wellon his way there, though he wasn’t certainhow he’d get up out of the holewhen lunch rolled around, but needis a good instructor, so he was surehe could figure it out easily enough.It was slower going than he imagined,slower by several magnitudes.He…
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KNOWLEDGE
It is difficult explaining to a child,even one who has reached the age of 40,that you once knew all there was to know.They are certain they know more than you,and they know all there is to knowso, a fortiori, you could not knowall that there is to know, period.They will say this with a certain…
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an old writer and his words 