I called her randomly one day. My own recipe was fine but it was just fine, and I finally felt ready to try to tackle hers. I scribbled notes as she ambled through recalling what she had been doing by muscle memory for decades. I don’t know that I could call it a recipe. But … Continue reading The Recipe
Category: Family
365
I didn’t think I’d make it a year. But here I am, heartbroken, gutted, but alive. The details of your face have not dulled in my mind. I am still an expert in every crease and mole and curve. The tenor of your voice and the tinkle of your laugh still ring clear as bells … Continue reading 365
Time’s Up
This is the speech I would have given at my aunt's funeral, had I been in any position to stand or say words. Some many months ago- too many as it tends to go- I found myself at my aunt's house for an impromptu sleepover. I don't know how it fell into place, if she … Continue reading Time’s Up
Gone
Sometimes I watch the news from back home late at night. I wade through random snippets of videos and articles about a weave robbery and a soldier coming home, searching. Sometimes I'll walk by a TV and a headline will catch my eye and I'll stop and watch and won't even realize I'm holding my breath … Continue reading Gone
The Mausoleum
Coming back to New Orleans is like walking the graveyard of all the women I used to be. Who I was when I was young and dumb and deliriously in love. When I was chasing my food with laxatives. When I was broke and struggling at a dead end job. Before the dark years. Before … Continue reading The Mausoleum
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
I’ve blocked out large swaths of my childhood. There are large, gaping holes in the landscape of my memory, my mind acting as something like a psychological gopher, digging underneath certain places in my memory until the earth falls in beneath them. It’s a coping mechanism I’m sure, one I suppose I will eventually have … Continue reading Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Refuge
As a child, I attended an exclusive private school in a tony suburb of my hometown. There wasn’t much about it I loved. I was one of the single digit population of brown people in a lily white sea of affluence I was entirely unfamiliar with. And a clumsy brown girl with unruly curls, (too … Continue reading Refuge
The Reason
I think that day I was complaining about all the junk. Or maybe the filthy, dark bathroom I had to share with my little brother. Either way, I was complaining, the latest bitch session of many bitch sessions about the things that were driving me to drink (more) about living with my daddy and stepmom … Continue reading The Reason
Matthew 25:40
I love my little brother more than anything. I've loved him since the first day he got here and I didn't understand why I couldn't hold him even though his tiny self was more than half the size of my tiny self. I loved him even when I accidentally let him fall head first off … Continue reading Matthew 25:40
Closer
Let’s face it; I am a person that thrives on distance.I move far away. Repeatedly. I leave all the sentimental things that matter to me, and a few belongings that don’t, in storage in a city where I am not a resident at the mercy of an ex who hates me and loves me in … Continue reading Closer
Liquor, Loans & Love 