Whenever a recipe calls for bay leaves, I can’t help but think of Irena. From the simmering warmth of my winter kitchen, I’m transported to the Adriatic in high summer.
You see, I have them still, the bay leaves she …
What if I hadn’t drifted over to Melbourne on a whim, to hook up with Jim, that permaculture expert I snogged at a random party, on a random evening, in an as yet ungentrified area of London way back in …
Like too many fathers across the globe I only get to see my daughter every second weekend. Out of 336 hours, I get 30. Before, as a stay at home dad, I saw my daughter every day. I got her …
I remember being in the indoor public swimming pool at the local gym club when the strangest thing happened to me.
There was myself and about 15 other people in the pool on that Saturday morning. I was there by …
He stood tall, the mist of morning surrounded his head and rose out of his mug. He regulated, with big, slow, loam filled breaths, his desire to spring into the forest and happily disappear, deeper and deeper into the woods, …
For six years, my home has been a foster home to teenagers in foster care. During those six years, my partner has only ever wanted to care for a girl of pre-schooler age. Just one – that’s all my partner …
We found out about her death because Dad saw her obituary in the newspaper. A week or two later, her property was posted with a sign advertising the sale of the contents of her home. Dad collected antiques and anything …
Wood smoke burns my eyes despite the air flowing in the door and out the roof vents of the cinder block cookhouse. My job is to stir the copper kettle filled with pig necks, feet, hearts, and livers that will …
I once cheated a blind woman out of $125. She was a law student then, and I, an English MA.
My teaching assistant stipend amounted to $484 a month. My monthly rent totaled $125 including steam heat and water. Electricity …
It was the late 1940s in Elmhurst, Queens. Our neighborhood was all-white, although a moderate walk from 55th Road would reveal one or more black families living on a hill with a nickname I cannot write all these years later. …