Content warning: Death and alcoholism It’s 1:00 a.m. on a Friday night and a Robin is singing outside my window. She startled me out of what I had hoped would be a good night’s rest. The many sounds of night have sidled up to me like a close talker–far away sirens, cars going too fast […]
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Sleep has never come easy for me. My body accepts it with reluctance at best and rebellion at worst. On this particular night I am somewhere in between the two when a sense of unease sidles me. I feel the space around my body tighten and an awareness of a slight pressure between my legs. […]
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First you will have to get married to someone who, when he asks you on bended knee in a 250 square foot apartment in Manhattan surrounded by the sounds of honking horns and a toilet that won’t stop running, you pause. You pause. Even though he stares at you, leans toward you, clutching the receipt […]
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I am lying on the floor of my basement in the winter of 1989. It is dark but for the remains of a smoldering log in the fireplace. Cool air seeps through the foundation and between the spaces of the delicate afghan that covers me. My parents aren’t home. It’s only me and Tom, sleeping […]
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I taught Sasha Obama when she was in 6th grade both in her private school and privately. (I’m a voice teacher.) I met the whole family, even Grandma, during the performance where Sasha got to show off her singing skills in a very small, family-only gathering. Still, there were snipers on the roof and bomb sniffing […]
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It’s mid-July and the thermostat in my teaching trailer reads 85 degrees. Everything I am wearing—skirt, summer camp t-shirt, faded red espadrilles hiding unpainted toenails—is sticking to me and I haven’t even started teaching yet. I need to make a playlist. One that says, “I’m the cool new music teacher.” I lean over to open iTunes […]
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A few nights ago, I had just turned off the light at the end of a long day and was looking forward to a good night’s sleep when my phone buzzed to let me know I had a Facebook notification. “Suzanne Frey Hawthorne has tagged you in a post.” Why is she tagging me at […]
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Dear Son, What I’m going to tell you is going to make you uncomfortable, but you’re a teenager now and I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you. I have lain on my back staring at the swirls on a lampshade trying to figure out what I did to deserve being pinned down, sweated on, and […]
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Christmas had arrived quiet and gray in 1987. The grandfather clock chimed a reminder that lunchtime was near. My mother cooked the turkey in a pillow case, hoping it would taste as good as it smelled, for once. It didn’t. “But what are you going to do with a Bachelor of Music. What will you […]
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Every day after school let out, my girlfriend and I would sprint back to her house to listen to Minnie Riperton’s “Loving You” (is easy ‘cause you’re beautiful). It was the number one song in the spring of 1975, back when I used to wear my hair in pig tails and skate circles in our […]
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Pryvate Parts 