I’m going to China early tomorrow morning, and my niece Elaina, only two months into being three, is getting ready for bed. We’ve had an extended Easter weekend with both sides of Elaina’s family, and Elaina has been very happy about it. But now it’s over. I hug her, tell her goodbye for the morning. SheContinue reading “For sweetness”
Category Archives: Love / relationships
Halcyon Heline Botkin
My grandmother died today. It was strange, in a way, because I had just witnessed by first-ever live birth, racing my sister’s contractions in my red Subaru the two-plus hours to Moscow. I saw the baby’s name for the first time inked on the whiteboard and my eyes got a little misty: Norah Katherine, keepingContinue reading “Halcyon Heline Botkin”
Dear Prudence,
I have seen you struggle from afar for a long time. I know you are sad, with the kind of sadness that eats into your psyche and erodes it, that the rust of what was falls away from you in fine, brittle pieces. I know what it is, that sadness. So because of this, IContinue reading “Dear Prudence,”
Emotion/logic, sex/purity
I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but girls are emotional. Like so emotional, they’re not supposed to be politicians or CEOs because their hormones might cause them to become irrational and then they’d accidentally kill and/or fire someone. I actually recited this litany to someone in my early college years, embarrassingly — although it wasContinue reading “Emotion/logic, sex/purity”
Dancing with the divine
I have recently taken up dancing lessons, which is not anything I haven’t tried before. I danced for many years: in my childhood and early teens, I did ballet, up until I got pointe shoes and decided I’d gone as far as I wanted to go with it. In college, I regularly went swing dancing,Continue reading “Dancing with the divine”
Adventures in online dating: the power of anti-flirting.
I’ll admit it, I’m bad at flirting. I’ve never been able to do what those girls I grew up with did, with the downcast eyes lifting all starry and shining through carefully-blackened lashes, those girls who insinuated with the sweet high-pitched quaver of their voices that whomever they were talking to was so manly andContinue reading “Adventures in online dating: the power of anti-flirting.”
For my Valentine
Sometimes, in these last few years, I couldn’t help but feel that the mistakes I’d made would haunt me forever, at least in projected marks upon my forehead. For better or worse, as cliché as it may be, the bad times make you who you are as much or more than the good times. ButContinue reading “For my Valentine”
Almost famous
I always wondered what it would be like to be famous. You know, have nice people admire you from afar, want to hang out with you before they’d even met you. Put your photo up on their bulletin board at college. Do a secret dance when they actually did meet you a decade later. ItContinue reading “Almost famous”
Playing at survival
We hiked up to the lake, and picked our way through the warren of trails along the edge to what we deemed was a good camping spot. The sun was setting, catching the hooked peak of the rock face opposite us. Louis got out his tent, and I asked if he needed help setting itContinue reading “Playing at survival”
-30-
My 30th birthday is tomorrow, and in many ways, I do not feel much different than I did at 25. Stronger, maybe; more capable, and also more fragile. I know the simple comfort of tucking myself into bed at night, in my own little house. I know the flush of blood pounding in my earsContinue reading “-30-“
Botkin Creative 