The manly smell of my father’s things wafted out of the drawer as I slid it open. As a small child, I loved to look at my father’s box. It was a place where he kept strange little things I didn’t yet understand. A medal from the National Guard. A picture of my mom long before I knew her. Small pins that represented things I didn’t know about. A picture of himself in what I assumed was his favorite car. A ticket. A matchbook or two. I would hold these things in my fingers, tracing their edges, and wonder what […]
It’s the little things…
This morning I cried while buttering my bagel. And while yes, I believe butter on a bagel is that beautiful, that’s not why I cried. I cried because I felt lucky to have the bagel. I felt, believe it or not, proud to have this bagel — and the five or six other bags of bagels that I know are on top of my fridge and in my freezer. And yes I’m crying while I write this. Again. Dear reader, please keep some tissues around. I cry a lot, unwillingly. There was a time in my world when walking through […]
Without a Net: Middle Class and Homeless (with Kids) in America
From Publisher’s Weekly: “You’d think it’d take a while to go from “given-every-opportunity, spoiled-in-every-way… middle-class housewife… to homeless single mother,” but Kennedy did it in less than a year. Just some “bad judgment calls and wrong decisions,” and a smart young former Senate page and promising college student found herself, at 25, living in a station wagon with her three young children, making pots of ramen noodles at campgrounds and showering at truck stops. Oddly enough, once readers learn the details, the story of Kennedy’s downfall goes from being unlikely to horribly plausible. Her parents couldn’t cover her tuition, but […]