Showing posts with label non fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label non fiction. Show all posts
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Sunday, March 20, 2011
PaniK
More to Lose, will appear in the Help Inspire Others Project anthology, PaniK: Candid Stories of Life Altering Experiences Surrounding Pregnancy, slated to release in September 2011. Stay tuned!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Recipe for an Anthology
Recipe for an Anthology, an article I co-wrote with Susan Koefod, is featured in A View from the Loft. It was a great opportunity to reflect on the process of self-publishing Let Them Eat Crepes and hopefully share some advice for others out there thinking about taking the plunge. Enjoy!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
More To Lose
My essay, More To Lose, about miscarriage was recently accepted for the Help Inspire Others Project. It will appear on their website, in their book, or both. It is a great project - definitely worth checking out.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Let Them Eat Crepes
Susan Koefod and I have recently released Let Them Eat Crepes: stories featuring the French pancake for the world to read! It's been a wonderful learning and exciting journey. Stay tuned to our website to find out details about upcoming events, news/reviews and where to buy the book!
Monday, March 8, 2010
The Last Time
You sat at the patio table on a plush, tan and green striped cushioned chair, fully in the shade. Your brown, peeling skin was taut across your bones, your jaundiced eyes hidden behind giant, stylish sun glasses. Three inches of hair covered your head. Your collar bones and new portacath protruded from your pink Nike t-shirt.
The backyard was vibrant with summer blossoms and foliage: roses, day lilies and hostas, lush shrubs and trees I can’t name. You had bought the house in October – and the garden someone else had planted was now yours to enjoy. Every morning, you looked out the window to see what new flower had sprouted – a surprise, something to get up for, you said.
You looked out of season surrounded by that fertile, summer garden. A dried leaf ready to fall from the branch. I tried to ignore this fact. I wondered if you did too.
We were having dinner – your husband, your mother, Noelle, you and me. We had green salads and fresh berries, white fish with rice and a rich, chocolate dessert. You ate everything. I was surprised and happy because I knew that sometimes you couldn’t eat. Sometimes everything came back up.
We talked about the weather, friends, my new daughter and motherhood, Noelle’s job, about the upcoming round of chemo and buying new wigs. You said you couldn’t wait – anything would be better than how you were feeling lately. I heard you emphasize anything and wished I could see your eyes behind the dark glasses.
You joked about how weird it was that my boobs were huge and yours were tiny, shriveled sacs. It was usually the other way around. I smiled but felt self-conscious about my milk-laden breasts. They were already dictating my timeline – I had exactly three hours to be away from my breastfeeding two month old. I felt the weight of my breasts grow as the deadline approached.
You lifted your shirt and showed us your distended, battle-scarred abdomen – a long pinkish line over your liver and countless other slits where you’d been opened and probed and sewn back up. They looked fresh; the stitches hadn’t fully healed yet.
I felt my milk let down and looked at the clock. It was time to go but I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to leave you. I wanted to somehow rewind the last year and erase the cancer diagnosis. I wanted to give you back your perky C-cups, your gorgeous hair, your young carefree life. I wanted to take off your sun glasses, look into your eyes and ask you the questions that have been pacing in my brain for months. I wanted to heal you, to somehow nurse you into health. I was already sustaining one life with my milk, why not two? My body knew exactly what to give my baby to survive. Maybe it would know what you needed too.
I wanted to do all of these things but did none of them. The sun slipped lower and shadows lengthened across your yard. Dogs barked, a basketball thumped and children squealed. Cars drove by and planes flew overhead. My cell phone vibrated with my husband’s text: the baby won’t stop crying.
You should take some hostas, you said. We have so many.
Noelle accepted and I declined. My time was up, I had to go. I stood up and hugged you, careful not to squeeze too tight. I didn’t want to hurt you but wanted you to know that I loved you. I said I was sorry I had to go and thank you so much for dinner. We’ll have to do it again soon. You said yes, soon. I said good luck with the chemo and squeezed your cold hand but didn’t say good bye.
I let myself out. I walked through the kitchen noticing the counter full of large plastic pill bottles, each one filled with a different color. I walked up the hallway to the front door and saw a walker near the foot of the stairs. I knew you didn’t use it much; I knew your husband had been carrying you up and down those stairs for weeks. Your house didn’t smell like you; it smelled of sickness and fresh cut flowers.
As I drove home, I cried. And I hoped and wished as hard as I’d ever hoped and wished that this would not be the last time I saw you.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Celebrate your Cycle with Style
Published lifestyle article Celebrate your Cycle with Style in Savvy Women's Magazine.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Crepe Sucre
It was my first night in Paris. Candles flickered and the dark air of the café was filled with smoke and jazz. Everyone was older than me. The lone freshman amongst juniors and seniors, I felt one step behind. During our first class on Expatriate Literature, I got lost somewhere between the French Feminists and Deconstruction.
The introductory tour of Paris was a blur - Sacre Coure, the Champs-Elysees, Jardin du Luxembourg, Eiffel tower, Notre Dame, the Seine, The Louvre – they were all muddled together in my mind, shades of black and gray. I had no idea how I would navigate such a huge city for the next three weeks.
I focused intently on the jazz, my glass of red wine, the French being spoken around me and its unfamiliar sounds - alluring and harsh. I couldn’t help feeling that my eighteen-year-old attempt to take charge of my life by doing something bold and adventurous was a big mistake.
As the days passed, I eased into the study abroad experience. I stayed with the group while exploring the city, carefully read the assignments and started to speak both literary theory and French. I learned the differences between the French and American Feminists and the relationship between Deconstruction in literature and the larger arts community. I read Gertrude Stein, Hemmingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, developing a kinship with those famous Americans living in Paris. As I walked the same narrow streets that had been their muse, their protection, and their raison d’être, I soaked in the promise of Paris. And even though I’d never studied French, it looks a lot like Spanish, which I had studied. I found I could read a menu even if I couldn’t pronounce the words.
Needless to say, I became a Francophile within days. And it wasn’t just Paris, it was crêpes.
Despite my initial feelings of naïveté, I felt a growing sense of my independent self in Paris. It began in earnest the day I decided to venture out alone into our neighborhood. I pulled on my gray wool coat, tied my scarf smartly around my neck in the French style and walked confidently out the front doors of the Hotel Trianon Rive Gauche into the Latin Quarter.
Turning onto Boulevard St. Michel, I walked past a patisserie. Scrumptious desserts lined the window and the smell of croissants wafted out the door. I passed a lingerie boutique with delectable desserts of a different kind displayed suggestively on the mannequins. Further up the street was a small market with large baskets of fresh fruit and flowers positioned near the entrance. The Café Le Luxembourg was filled with Parisians leisurely sipping coffee and reading books in the atrium facing the Jardin du Luxembourg.
As I turned the corner, I was engulfed in a smell so warm and sweet that I had to stop. A small stand was tucked under the awning of a confectionery shop just a few feet away. It was a crêpe stand. During our student orientation, we had been warned about eating food from street vendors, but as I looked from the menu to the batter bubbling on the griddle, I was ready for the risk.
Bonjour Mademoiselle, man behind the griddle greeted me. Crêpe Sucre, I immediately responded, surprising myself with the clarity in which the words flew out of my mouth. I sounded, well, French.
The man nodded without any recognition of the significance of this moment we were sharing. He poured enough batter to thinly coat the large, round griddle. It sizzled as it started to steam and bubble in the crisp, January air. With the skill of a master, he quickly flipped the crêpe, slathered it with butter and sprinkled it with sugar. And with three swift movements of his spatula, the crêpe was no longer a thin pancake on the griddle, but a smooth triangular pastry in a paper liner. I exchanged a handful of francs for my crêpe. We both smiled as I turned to walk away.
Across the street was one of the many entrances to the Jardin Le Luxembourg and I could see an empty bench just on the edge of the garden. I dodged Renaults and Volkswagens as I crossed the street and claimed my place on the bench. I breathed in the scent of my crêpe, the foliage and the smell of diesel thinking that it was the perfect trifecta.
I watched people hustle by, hunched against the brisk wind and listened to the smooth, rhythmic cadence of the French language around me. I bit into my crêpe, letting the butter and sugar melt on my tongue, and I found that the language that was so foreign a few weeks earlier was now soothing and familiar. I couldn’t help feeling that this was what being independent was all about. Letting the sweet taste of a new experience overwhelm your senses and surround you. Simultaneously losing and finding yourself in a moment, in a crêpe, in a garden, while enjoying each luscious bite.
To appear in the anthology Let Them Eat Crepes (eatingcrepes.com)
The introductory tour of Paris was a blur - Sacre Coure, the Champs-Elysees, Jardin du Luxembourg, Eiffel tower, Notre Dame, the Seine, The Louvre – they were all muddled together in my mind, shades of black and gray. I had no idea how I would navigate such a huge city for the next three weeks.
I focused intently on the jazz, my glass of red wine, the French being spoken around me and its unfamiliar sounds - alluring and harsh. I couldn’t help feeling that my eighteen-year-old attempt to take charge of my life by doing something bold and adventurous was a big mistake.
As the days passed, I eased into the study abroad experience. I stayed with the group while exploring the city, carefully read the assignments and started to speak both literary theory and French. I learned the differences between the French and American Feminists and the relationship between Deconstruction in literature and the larger arts community. I read Gertrude Stein, Hemmingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, developing a kinship with those famous Americans living in Paris. As I walked the same narrow streets that had been their muse, their protection, and their raison d’être, I soaked in the promise of Paris. And even though I’d never studied French, it looks a lot like Spanish, which I had studied. I found I could read a menu even if I couldn’t pronounce the words.
Needless to say, I became a Francophile within days. And it wasn’t just Paris, it was crêpes.
Despite my initial feelings of naïveté, I felt a growing sense of my independent self in Paris. It began in earnest the day I decided to venture out alone into our neighborhood. I pulled on my gray wool coat, tied my scarf smartly around my neck in the French style and walked confidently out the front doors of the Hotel Trianon Rive Gauche into the Latin Quarter.
Turning onto Boulevard St. Michel, I walked past a patisserie. Scrumptious desserts lined the window and the smell of croissants wafted out the door. I passed a lingerie boutique with delectable desserts of a different kind displayed suggestively on the mannequins. Further up the street was a small market with large baskets of fresh fruit and flowers positioned near the entrance. The Café Le Luxembourg was filled with Parisians leisurely sipping coffee and reading books in the atrium facing the Jardin du Luxembourg.
As I turned the corner, I was engulfed in a smell so warm and sweet that I had to stop. A small stand was tucked under the awning of a confectionery shop just a few feet away. It was a crêpe stand. During our student orientation, we had been warned about eating food from street vendors, but as I looked from the menu to the batter bubbling on the griddle, I was ready for the risk.
Bonjour Mademoiselle, man behind the griddle greeted me. Crêpe Sucre, I immediately responded, surprising myself with the clarity in which the words flew out of my mouth. I sounded, well, French.
The man nodded without any recognition of the significance of this moment we were sharing. He poured enough batter to thinly coat the large, round griddle. It sizzled as it started to steam and bubble in the crisp, January air. With the skill of a master, he quickly flipped the crêpe, slathered it with butter and sprinkled it with sugar. And with three swift movements of his spatula, the crêpe was no longer a thin pancake on the griddle, but a smooth triangular pastry in a paper liner. I exchanged a handful of francs for my crêpe. We both smiled as I turned to walk away.
Across the street was one of the many entrances to the Jardin Le Luxembourg and I could see an empty bench just on the edge of the garden. I dodged Renaults and Volkswagens as I crossed the street and claimed my place on the bench. I breathed in the scent of my crêpe, the foliage and the smell of diesel thinking that it was the perfect trifecta.
I watched people hustle by, hunched against the brisk wind and listened to the smooth, rhythmic cadence of the French language around me. I bit into my crêpe, letting the butter and sugar melt on my tongue, and I found that the language that was so foreign a few weeks earlier was now soothing and familiar. I couldn’t help feeling that this was what being independent was all about. Letting the sweet taste of a new experience overwhelm your senses and surround you. Simultaneously losing and finding yourself in a moment, in a crêpe, in a garden, while enjoying each luscious bite.
To appear in the anthology Let Them Eat Crepes (eatingcrepes.com)
3AM
I.
There is a crash and the house vibrates. My eyes shoot open and a flash of lightening illuminates the room for a second. The eyes of my dolls are eerily open, watching. A deafening boom follows the light and it repeats within seconds. The thunder and lightning occur almost simultaneously. The rain pelts the sky light in my room – so loud it is like hail, so loud it almost dulls the bursts of thunder. I pull the comforter up to my chin and breathe in, out, in, out. It is just a storm, I’m safe. I repeat the mantra in my mind over and over again. With each flash of lightening, I swear I see things moving in the corners of my room. Fearsome things lurking, waiting to pounce. In, out. In, out. I force my breath to be slow, steady. I close my eyes and try to go back to sleep. I think pleasant thoughts – summer days doing cannon balls at my grandma’s pool, racing around the block on my purple banana seat bike, slurping icy root beer floats at the drive in. I feel my grip on the comforter start to loosen, the tightness in my chest starts to dissipate. I no longer have to consciously slow my breath. The storm rages on and I slip into a dream.
II.
Your breath is steamy in my ear. Your tongue traces along its edge and ends at my lobe. You hold it in your mouth. It is wet, hot. You move to my neck, gently teasing my skin with your teeth. You smell earthy; a combination of rum, sweat and cologne. I run my hands under your shirt and feel your chest, trace the outline of your pecks. I lift it up over your head and press my lips against yours. I feel light headed: the last glass of wine and desire simultaneously fogging and heightening my senses. Dido’s crooning and our labored breathing is all I hear. The candles on the dresser and the nightstand flicker. You pull off my shirt and fumble with my bra. Then, in one smooth movement, you cradle me onto your bed, brush the long strands of dark hair out of my eyes and kiss me. I unbutton your jeans and push them off of your legs with my foot and then slide out of my own. We are naked moving, hips tilting, grinding – hard, pressing into each other. Pushing, building, frantic until we release.
III. I feel your tiny hand on my breast as we rock, snuggled in the glider in the nursery. It is dark except for a sliver of moonlight that shines through the opening where the curtains meet. The only sound is the rush of the wind through the trees outside and the rhythm of your sucks and swallows. You roll the nipple on my left breast between your thumb and pointer finger with your right hand, absently fondling your food source. I wince and remove your hand while tucking my nightshirt tighter around that nipple so you can’t pinch it. I rest my head against the padded chair and close my eyes. I rock us back and forth; my feet perched on the edge of the footrest. Your fingers and open palm lightly caress the skin between my sternum and left breast. Your eyes are closed, lips fluttering, jaw working. You stop. My nipple, moist with milk, slips out of your mouth. Your face is peaceful, content. Your hand rests on my heart. I imagine the comfort that courses through your small body as you feel the familiar thud-thud, the music of the womb. I hold you a little longer, enjoying your weight in my arms, the quiet darkness of the night, your soft, sweet scent.
There is a crash and the house vibrates. My eyes shoot open and a flash of lightening illuminates the room for a second. The eyes of my dolls are eerily open, watching. A deafening boom follows the light and it repeats within seconds. The thunder and lightning occur almost simultaneously. The rain pelts the sky light in my room – so loud it is like hail, so loud it almost dulls the bursts of thunder. I pull the comforter up to my chin and breathe in, out, in, out. It is just a storm, I’m safe. I repeat the mantra in my mind over and over again. With each flash of lightening, I swear I see things moving in the corners of my room. Fearsome things lurking, waiting to pounce. In, out. In, out. I force my breath to be slow, steady. I close my eyes and try to go back to sleep. I think pleasant thoughts – summer days doing cannon balls at my grandma’s pool, racing around the block on my purple banana seat bike, slurping icy root beer floats at the drive in. I feel my grip on the comforter start to loosen, the tightness in my chest starts to dissipate. I no longer have to consciously slow my breath. The storm rages on and I slip into a dream.
II.
Your breath is steamy in my ear. Your tongue traces along its edge and ends at my lobe. You hold it in your mouth. It is wet, hot. You move to my neck, gently teasing my skin with your teeth. You smell earthy; a combination of rum, sweat and cologne. I run my hands under your shirt and feel your chest, trace the outline of your pecks. I lift it up over your head and press my lips against yours. I feel light headed: the last glass of wine and desire simultaneously fogging and heightening my senses. Dido’s crooning and our labored breathing is all I hear. The candles on the dresser and the nightstand flicker. You pull off my shirt and fumble with my bra. Then, in one smooth movement, you cradle me onto your bed, brush the long strands of dark hair out of my eyes and kiss me. I unbutton your jeans and push them off of your legs with my foot and then slide out of my own. We are naked moving, hips tilting, grinding – hard, pressing into each other. Pushing, building, frantic until we release.
III. I feel your tiny hand on my breast as we rock, snuggled in the glider in the nursery. It is dark except for a sliver of moonlight that shines through the opening where the curtains meet. The only sound is the rush of the wind through the trees outside and the rhythm of your sucks and swallows. You roll the nipple on my left breast between your thumb and pointer finger with your right hand, absently fondling your food source. I wince and remove your hand while tucking my nightshirt tighter around that nipple so you can’t pinch it. I rest my head against the padded chair and close my eyes. I rock us back and forth; my feet perched on the edge of the footrest. Your fingers and open palm lightly caress the skin between my sternum and left breast. Your eyes are closed, lips fluttering, jaw working. You stop. My nipple, moist with milk, slips out of your mouth. Your face is peaceful, content. Your hand rests on my heart. I imagine the comfort that courses through your small body as you feel the familiar thud-thud, the music of the womb. I hold you a little longer, enjoying your weight in my arms, the quiet darkness of the night, your soft, sweet scent.
Innoculated
You squirm the moment you hear the crinkle of the paper on the examination table. I hold your arms firmly at your sides and try to meet your eyes as I whisper tender words and give you haphazard kisses as you shake your head from side to side. Your eyes are frantic with panic; every fiber of your 19 pound, 30 inch body is struggling to escape. Your father holds your legs while the nurse sticks you with a syringe, efficiently pushing fluid into the muscle of your left thigh.
One – your screams raise a notch.
Two – breathing borders on hyperventilation.
The nurse moves to the right thigh and delivers the last dose, dabs each puncture mark and covers them with bright blue Snoopy band aids. It is over.
I wrap you in my arms. You hiccup and continue to whine as we gingerly put on your pants, socks and shoes. You bury your face in my shoulder; wrap your arms around my neck and your legs around my waist as we walk through the clinic to the car. Our soothing “it’s okay,” and “no more owies” don’t seem to dull your pain. Or ours. As you snuggle in closer, looking for comfort at my breast, I find no comfort in the knowledge that this isn’t the last time we’ll make you cry.
One – your screams raise a notch.
Two – breathing borders on hyperventilation.
The nurse moves to the right thigh and delivers the last dose, dabs each puncture mark and covers them with bright blue Snoopy band aids. It is over.
I wrap you in my arms. You hiccup and continue to whine as we gingerly put on your pants, socks and shoes. You bury your face in my shoulder; wrap your arms around my neck and your legs around my waist as we walk through the clinic to the car. Our soothing “it’s okay,” and “no more owies” don’t seem to dull your pain. Or ours. As you snuggle in closer, looking for comfort at my breast, I find no comfort in the knowledge that this isn’t the last time we’ll make you cry.
Friday, April 24, 2009
myShape.com Makes Online Shopping Personal
Published the fashion article myShape.com Makes Online Shopping Personal in Savvy Women's Magazine
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