The Art of Becoming

For three plus years in my early 20s, my dear friend and roommate had a cat named Chloe. I never had did any cat-related-work, and yet, Chloe flustered me. She would systematically nudge drinking glasses filled with water off tables and mantels just to watch the glass break. She delightedly sat twitching her tail while one of us cleaned it up. Chloe couldn't decide if she wanted to sit next to me while watching TV or if she just wanted to stick her claws in me. My roommate assured me this was a sign of affection, but the sight of a cats claws' tacitly terrified me. Chloe would sometimes pee on a random blanket or piece of clothing or bag. I was a dog-person. Dogs were trained to pee and poop outside. Why were cats so different?  Then one Christmas my roommate drove home to Louisiana from Chicago, and Chloe slipped out of the car at a roadside stop in Mississippi or Tennessee, never to be found again. My roommate was devastated. I felt horrible for my roommate when she called to

When the pandemic began and we stayed home every single day, I delighted in the ability to choose comfortable clothing to lounge around. Despite gyms being closed, I knew that it would be easier to fit in a workout at any point in the day, because we had nothing else to do! But as hours ticked by, and days became weeks, and the pandemic had no federal or state leadership by which to curb it, my anxiety rose. I voraciously read the news, and I didn't have a physical fitness routine. My dear friend was encouraging me to set an achievable goal: just get 15 minutes of exercise a day. It seemed simple enough. How many chunks of 15 minutes happen each day? Surely I can allocate one or two of them to getting exercise. In April: I found a Youtube channel that had quick high-intensity workouts. I jumped around in our TV room, finding all of the creaky floorboards, bumping into the couch and coffee table, becoming increasingly aware that I am not as young as I used to be. Certainly not as yo

My dad and I took a walk yesterday, or the day before. Who knows what day it is anymore? After we fumed over the uncertainty of the election and the string of lies spewing out of the President's mouth, I decided to change the subject. I wanted to talk about anything except the ache in my throat and chest. me: What's your favorite fall leaf color? Dad: Red. My 11-year old son, Sean, agreed.  me: I really love the yellow ones.  Which is true, just after the rain, the yellow leaves against the dark trunk of the tree are so beautiful.  Dad: There are some leaves that start to turn, until the edges are ringed with a red-orange color, and the leaf itself is yellow. Some of them are so beautiful it almost makes me want to cry. As much as I wanted to bypass the ache, I couldn't. The fall beauty makes me want to cry, too: trees turning radiant colors and then letting go and shedding the leaves that once adorned their branches. The falling leaves and the crunch of the already fallen

I have never lived alone. I grew up in a family with four children. My sister and I shared a bed until I was 12. It was easier to fall asleep knowing my sister was next to me, knowing my brothers were sleeping in the next room. When it was hot, and we didn't have central air conditioning, my parents made us a palate on the floor of the living room next to the window unit. The constant blowing cold air and white noise eased us into sleep, puppy-piled in a nylon green double sleeping bag with a green plaid interior. Even after I got my own room at 12 years old, I still battled insomnia some nights, so my Dad would pull a chair into the hallway outside my room and read the newspaper while I fell asleep. It's always been a comfort to know that someone is close by, that I'm not ever truly left alone. I had one, two, three, and four roommates throughout college living situations. Then after college I always lived with multiple other people. I believed that my extremely extroverte

This morning the boys couldn't leave to go on their run because I'd hidden Sean's shoes. You read that correctly. In a move formerly known as juvenile and petty, I hid his tennis shoes yesterday. I asked him multiple times yesterday to pick his shoes up off the floor: first at the base of the stairs on the way up to his bedroom. Then after I asked that of him repeatedly, he threw them at the top of the stairwell that goes down to our front door. Neither place was actually getting the shoes out of the way. I fumed. And then picked up multiple items I'd been asking him to clean up, and hid them in the closet in my "office."  This child only has one pair of tennis shoes. Foolishly I thought it would be days before it would even occur to him to look for them, because most days of the week, how often do we even leave the house much less need a specific pair of shoes? In the wee hours of the morning around our house, the only sound to be heard is our dog whimpering,

At the start of the pandemic, Corona-shaming was a thing. From the UK to the US . As most of us felt helpless in the face of massive shutdowns, economic struggle, job losses, and health concerns, many people were looking for something to do, something to help the situation. The Corona-shaming, or the finger-pointing and public humiliation of people "doing it wrong" is not something new. We have been pointing fingers at one group or another for as long as humans have lived. What's different now is the presence of camera capabilities in everyone's pocket. What's different now is the proliferation of so many images and videos all the time, that our brains swim in array of choices: do I agree with that image? Is that image funny? Is it true? Does it strike the right chord inside of me? Does it make me angry?  Social media encourages people to finger point. But does Corona-shaming help the virus decrease? Does it really help save lives?  "The answer is “probably