BrushWith. . .

Cleanse

The summer of 1997, when cell phones were still novel and farmers markets were still about farmers, I spent the summer in Boulder. My internship at Time Warner Telecom was in the DTC, but I didn’t mind. There were roommates to hook up with, real hippies to discover and new words to learn. Trustafarian was [...]

Dear Scarlett: August 29th, 2009

Dear Scarlett, When you rose to meet me, you looked like a little old woman and a little baby bird at the same time, an old, wild soul, all scrunched up and sweet and full of ethereal wisdom, yet completely pure. There were no tears or screams, just awe and confusion on your pinker-than-expected skin. [...]

Prenatal #1

I was so nervous that morning. I’d even cried. Flustered by my slippery hot rollers and the client meeting which had suddenly come up and the fact that my favorite watch of all time had stopped working after seven years. Silly things, you see. But last week it had been sun glare and the absence [...]

Road Trip, Part One

I had decided to drive home for Christmas. And once I put all those images of me stranded in a cornfield and then approached and kidnapped by Asgrow O’s Gold-logo’ed-mesh-hatted trucker in a locked drawer at the back of my head, it started to sound like the perfect idea. There would be pit-stops at interstate-side [...]

What’s Your Greatest Fear?

I once heard a friend of mine relay a conversation he’d had with his wife: Husband: Honey, what’s your greatest fear? Wife: Well, I think it would be that if one of us died and little Sally had to grow up with just one parent. Husband: Oh, I see. Wife: What’s your greatest fear? Husband: [...]

Survival

At the market that morning, there was nothing special for sale. It was Goodwill in the shape of a shoe horn along the lake. Fourth-hand dresses and Old Navy sweatshirts and shiny department store shoes minus the box on blankets. Frowning vendors sold tough-skinned tomatoes. Very occasionally a car would roll by entirely too fast [...]

Afraid of the dark

Do you like the dark? I’m not really a fan. I prefer a light switch, even if I don’t need one. Africa doesn’t have a switch. Often, its only teeth enamel and eye-whites which light the way along the lane as they sell fish, walk home, feed a baby or haul their harvest. We’ve had [...]

Naked Eyes

We started this trip with two cameras. We now have none. Yes, the whole stolen thing really sucked. So did the day-long police report experience. There was disbelief, devastation and denial. But there was, eventually, a solemn belief in the idea that this didn’t mean the world was bad, just that two people were bad. [...]

Africa Just Is

The soft spongey skin beneath my nails are rimmed with blue paint and there is a spot above my breast, too. It’s from today. We painted a pit latrine at a school for orphans as volunteers for SoftPower Education. It will not be the last bit of blue to stain my body. I felt brighter. [...]

Top This

The water is angry and swirling from the splash of the sky, the shoebills are out for a bath, the monkeys are minding the forest and Africans are whooping and squawking along the ruddy, muddy shores while 50-50’s edge grows ever closer. I scoop the waves with futility. . paddle left, paddle right, hold on, [...]

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