I am looking forward to going to a friend’s party near work, but I am not about to drive an hour home just to drive an hour back to this side of town. So, I walk to the hotel bar across the street from work to kill time. It is Friday so the bar is packed; all I want is a little spot to order some sliders. I finally find one empty stool in the corner of the bar, and I ask a redheaded lady beside it if anyone is sitting there…
All in HONORABLE MENTION
I should have gotten up a few minutes earlier. I’m schlepping my bag, and a giant box of decorations and cookies down the stairs. The frost on my windshield is going to take a few minutes to scrape, and I still need to stop and pick-up some extra-snacks for the classroom party. I am crawling to the finish line. I am teacher tired…
“Thanks for calling BelBrite Technical Support. This is Kevin. Can I have your name?” A deep voice says, breaking through a stream of hold music.
I stare at a string of work emails on my phone, reading angry subject lines from higher-ups…
I’ve arrived early for my yoga class. More accurately, I am so late for my regular class that I decide to wait for the next one. I’m not sure what to do. I never hang out at my health club. I usually get here late, take a class and hurry out.
I’m preoccupied by worrying about my daughter. She’s been suffering strange symptoms…
“Good catch, sorry about the weird leg thing.” It’s 8pm, there's a New England snowstorm raging outside, and my training partner and I are using the back part of a weightlifting gym so that we can continue with our acrobatics while the pandemic has shut down the circus world. Masks, hand sanitizer, distanced from everybody but each other, and worst of all, windows open. It’s worth it though. After a year of downtime due to injury, we’ll do anything to make progress…
“What are you reading?” He asks as he sits beside me. The waning light through the Greyhound bus windows make him a grey shadow at first. A young man, still at least ten years older than my just-over-15, blonde curls and blue jeans, an intense focus in his eyes…
It’s a muggy, East Coast September afternoon, and the pandemic is pummeling the US. The airport is a ghost town. I arrive two hours before my flight home to Colorado. I stroll through the rows of closed shops and restaurants just behind the TSA line; the eyes of my fellow masked travelers reflect my own uncertainty…
With about two hours to see Bhaktapur’s Durbar Square on my one day tour of Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley, I’m here to see the temple at Taumadhi Square; peruse genuine Newari pottery in Pottery Square; marvel at what’s left of a city nearly destroyed by a devastating earthquake less than a year ago.
My walk takes me past buildings standing precariously amid piles of rubble. Am I the only one who sees?…
We are lost in paradise. This is our favorite place to be even if the buildings are different each time we return. There is something special about how the sun and sand in Mexico heal our wounds. We have been drifting apart lately. I cannot tell if he sees it but this is my last-ditch effort to save whatever is left of “us”…
I love the view from the bridge. I always have. The sounds and the people fishing off the ledges. The way the wind engages my face like fingers on a piano to play a smile. The wind seems to know the right nerves to touch when humans forget. Even if the smile is false, it feels good to pretend. I decide that legs should touch the railing. I climb. One foot then leg swinging like a pendulum over the edge, I move with intention…
It’s December in New England, so cold your extremities are numb instantly. I’m sitting in a parked car at the site of a recent five-alarm fire. Six firefighters are missing, dead. The leader turns to me, “These firefighters are tired and devastated. Our only job is to offer a hot cup of coffee and a listening ear if they need it” he says wearily. I wonder how many hours he’s been here, what he has seen…
My running shoes sink slightly into the sand with each step. My steps fall into a rhythm that matches the song playing through my headphones. The sun slowly slips beneath the horizon to my left, scattering pink and orange and purple across the sky. Small waves lap the shore. I run up the coast, alongside the giant crumbling bluffs every day.
There is no one else on the beach, except for…
On a snowy Sunday night at the mall, Alex and I are doing our usual eight laps up and down the corridors, stopping occasionally to allow him to zip up all the misbehaved coats on the racks at Macy's and Dick’s Sporting Goods, the two anchor stores at opposite ends. We are in Macy's and stop to straighten out a rack of blue and white flowered pants which have become askew on their hangers. Two women are standing at the racks when we approach. Both declare the pants "screamy," regardless if you're considering the X-Large or the X-Small. Loud is loud…
The train pulls into the station and people surge towards it. As soon as I get on my heart sinks. Every seat is taken. I push through the door at the end of the carriage; it's a dead end. But it’s also a breathing space, which is more than anyone has in the over-crowded carriage I just left. It’s cold here, peaceful. I sit on my bag and stare out the window as London slips away. This will be a very long three hours.
I’ve been sitting on my own for about five minutes when a girl with dreadlocks pushes her way through the door…
Exhausted on my way home from work, I stop for groceries. Normally, I enjoy shopping at this small organic market. Bright peppers, freshly-misted greens, and earthy rainbows of yams bring me closer to nature in my gray suburb. Today, I’m distant from my senses.
After weeks of speculation and debate, the news is beginning to urge people to prepare for a pandemic. I look at my grocery list. Blueberries, almond butter, and frozen pizza won’t suffice.
I stand and stare at a shelf of grapes. I tell myself to keep moving, make a plan, don’t interact. Everything appears so normal, but to me, the unknown is overwhelming…
It’s December 3rd, and I walk into Target. I need toilet paper and to look at Christmas lights for a few minutes and try to get in the spirit. To try to stop worrying. To try to be less lonely. To try to stop missing my childhood, my grandparents, the way things used to be. To desperately try and feel the magic and wonder I used to feel during this time of year.
Enter Jerry…
It’s the summer of ‘99, and I have recently run the Big Three gamut of adulthood: a boy broke my heart, I moved out of my childhood home, and after two years of wasting time at a very pricey university, I changed my mind. I am now about a month into a summer job as a camp counselor four states away from home. I decided that I would hate this job about 12 hours after I started, but now I’m bound to an employment contract I’d never bothered to read closely…
It’s a week before Christmas and I’m working outdates in the candy aisle at Walgreens. I’m seven and a half hours into an eight-hour shift. My feet hurt and a recent interaction with a disgruntled customer has put me in a mood. I glance at the clock and urge the minute hand to move faster, but it creeps along like it’s stuck in traffic. I’m sorting through the chocolate bars when someone walks up beside me…