Please accept — with no obligation, implied or implicit — our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday… The plum tree in the backyard has shed all its leaves, a bouquet of sticks silhouetted against the still green trees around it, the lemon tree with its bright spots of fruit hanging over the neighbor’s fence and the climbing rose blooming in December. The lemons, the roses, the birds that come to the seed generously provided by the upstairs neighbors, they all starkly contrast last winter, where the sky …

I feel curiously blank today. Empty. Like if you were to pop open the top of my head, you would be able to see clearly the inside of the skin on the bottoms of my feet. All my inner parts are missing, and I am weightless with their absence. I am nothing but a hollow skin. The noise of the train rattling down the street bounces around inside my head, echoes in the spaces of my hollow self, reverberating most where my stomach used to be. The train is gone, over hill, around corner, and I can still hear it, …

“The people have spoken. Now, we just have to figure out what they said.” May I take advantage of the noise surrounding our presidential election to bring up something that seems to me to be nearly as important as determining the winner. Amid the clamor for re-counts and re-votes, the dismay over confusing ballots and close races, and while protesters wave signs, “Abolish the Electoral College,” no one has mentioned the appalling failure of our U.S. history and government classes. If my public high school experience is in any way indicative of high school experiences for most of the country’s …

“The lion killed the tiger. Which one it is dead?” He was standing uncomfortably close to me while I finished one box of cereal and opened a new one. “We leave at 8:30 when Mom, Kathy takes me.” “Right. But my watch says its 8:15, so I still have time for breakfast.” “8:15 is what my watch says, too.” A pause. “Will you come in with me?” “No. I’ll drop you off at church, and then I’ll be back to pick you up at noon.” I’m fishing for a spoon out of the dish drainer because he’s leaning on the …

“Good heavens! Is that your voter pamphlet?!?” It’s 4:00 on a Saturday afternoon. I’ve been reading voter pamphlets and sample ballots since before 10:00. And I’m not done yet. Nearly 30 propositions is way more than I want to handle in one sitting. I like the principles that went into making America a democracy. Governments, I believe, are supposed to work for the people, and I like the idea that the citizens of a community have opportunities to express how they want government to work. But frankly, this election has started to feel a just a little ridiculous. (And I’m …

“You know, secretly I hope the power stays off.” I’m sure it was an innocent mistake. Whenever I’ve driven a large truck (moving truck size), I’ve been a nervous wreck. The truck is so very huge, and I’m so very unsure of where its edges are, where the edge of the road is, where the other cars might suddenly appear from. Perhaps this driver was a novice; perhaps he was an expert. Perhaps he was sloppy, perhaps it was a true accident. Either way, when he drove away, something snagged, then caught. There was a loud, dull thud, a sound …