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Teaching the Youngest to Drive: An Incomplete List
Posted on February 8, 2018 4 Comments
Driving school lessons completed: 6 Vehicle: manual transmission (stick shift), dual control Driving school lessons remaining: 4 Vehicle: manual, dual control
What starts with ‘F’ and ends with ‘uck’?
Posted on January 10, 2018 22 Comments
Q: What starts with ‘F’ and ends with ‘-uck’? When my eldest was still shorter than me, still small enough to clamber up onto my lap, take my face in his chubby little hands, and very seriously demand my attention, we lived in a remote town in the far northwest of Australia. (Now he demands […]
An Ode to Things and a Farewell
Posted on November 4, 2016 5 Comments
So, here we are in part 2 of the ongoing repatriation saga. Packing and moving over continents is always a stressful act. The emotions tied to watching your possessions be carefully, or not so carefully wrapped and boxed can be overwhelming. It’s easy to dismiss possessions as nothing more than trinkets, clutter that fill your […]
On 17th birthdays and glimpses of the adult
Posted on August 17, 2016 6 Comments
So, here I am very early on Godzilla’s 17th birthday, resting on the corner of Testosterone Lane and Horsepower Road. Having two teen boys in the house means a lot of muscle flexing, boundary pushing, and territory marking. They wake with teasing exchanges that rapidly morph into the rat-tat-tat of suddenly flared tempers. And before long, like […]
El Sibonéy
Posted on January 18, 2016
Our second day of vacation in Key West, we Yelped for restaurants not too far away (always a criterion when moody teenagers are in tow), and El Sibonéy came up. The rating was good, though not stellar, but the reviews piqued our interest. They were resoundingly good. We headed out for a late-ish lunch, bellies rumbling, tempers […]
New year blues
Posted on January 10, 2016
Happy new year! Which path are you taking for 2016? So here we are, at the end of the first week of the new year, and I’m already talking about depression. Unfathomable, right? Or is it really? After all, we have just come out the other side of effectively two months of US holidays.
No More Streamers
Posted on September 1, 2015 6 Comments
No more streamers littering the floor. No more shining cachous skittering across counters. The fairies have packed up their bread and departed. Saggy, flaccid balloons leer lecherously at disemboweled party poppers, as football and pirate cupcake wrappers tango in mismatched pairs.
A Tale of Familiars
Posted on May 27, 2015 10 Comments
In January of 2012, my my mother’s younger sister, my small mother, my Cheriamma went kicking and flailing out of this world. The end of her life was as she had always lived it, full of fight, and on her own terms. Cheriamma was a brilliant, beautiful, eccentric woman who encountered academic failure for the […]
In Which I Deal with Death Doubled
Posted on April 5, 2015 16 Comments
This week my essay on grief was published on Modern Loss, an online journal containing resources and personal accounts about death, loss, and grief. It’s a piece I’m proud of, and I’m delighted it was published, but it’s also a piece that causes such turmoil in me.
The Great Beyond
Posted on January 30, 2015 4 Comments
“One night the moon came galloping by On a big horse right across the night sky One night the moon came galloping by Called all the dreamers to come for a ride”* Blackness. Silence. Robbie scrunches further under his blankets, shores up the external pillow walls, and slaps his hands over his ears. He feels […]
Asha Rajan 