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Goodnight, Mensa
My dad belonged to a group for smart people called Mensa. As a child I imagined the meetings as a bunch of guys standing around talking logarithmic equations in their white short-sleeved button-down shirts with skinny ties, with pens protruding from their pocket protectors. Maybe a slide rule poking out of a back pocket. My dad had to take a test to get into Mensa. Mensa means “table” in Latin. There are now about 134,000 members around the world. My dad was very proud of the fact that he had been tested at a 165 IQ or maybe 190, and he was obviously a card-carrying Mensa member. I mean, really.…
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The Crows
They say that crows are harbingers of death. Bad omens. I say nay. As I left the gym two days ago, sweaty-yet-glowing from my workout, I saw a large black shape near the top of the palm tree just outside the double glass exit doors. A raven? Nope. Crow. Crows are like the Death card in Tarot. Death = change. Okay. Change right now is good. We need change. I drove home, thinking about the hundreds of messages I was about to launch into the world, messages telling of our five exhausting years of cancer terror and asking for help because we fell so deep into a hole that we…
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My Broken Brain, Part Two
My brain has a new curfew. It’s not allowed to make words past 7 pm. This is to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings between me and my beloved, who keeps telling me I don’t make sense when in fact I know I am making perfect sense. We cannot both be right. My brain must abdicate and I must learn to live with it. But this is a hard, hard thing for some one who grew up thinking that to be Right was to be Good, and to be Good meant being worthy of being alive. Ergo, to give up being Right feels a little like death. Or the imminent prospect of death,…
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I Am Scared Now
I was so excited to go to the library today. It had been years since I set foot in a library. The last time was, well, I cannot remember when the last time was, I just remember that it had a row of computers that always seemed in use. And the end of the rows were marked with papers that said which kind of books could be found there. I read a lot then. I even read several biographies, which was weird but oddly satisfying. I can remember many details about the library but not where or when it was. None of this should surprise me, given how things went…
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My Beautiful Broken Brain
There is a documentary out called My Beautiful Broken Brain, about a woman learning to communicate again after her brain injury. I keep meaning to watch it. But I just realized I don’t need to watch it — I am living it. It turns out that I am not as invincible as I once thought. Repairable, yes. Invincible, no. I have permanent brain injury. Brain damage. My brain got jostled about during its two surgeries, and it was even shifted over to one side for a few months, which I am now told is a Bad Thing. Some people don’t recover well from it. I’ve beat worse odds than this…
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The Night I Died
It was late. I was trying to sleep. My heart beat faster. I couldn’t breathe. My heart wouldn’t stop pounding. Breath exercises didn’t help. I kept telling my heart to slow down, to stop pounding. Take a breath! Now! Do it! I couldn’t. I couldn’t will myself to breathe, to live. I needed help. My heart felt like it was leaping out of my chest. I texted my beloved, in the next room. The text was garbled, a series of meaningless letters and symbols. rj3u92/, perhaps. Texting didn’t work. I called to him. Surely he would hear me. I called and called. HELP, I said, as loud as I could.…
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Circadian
I prowl restless empty streets Savoring your breath upon the wind Hungry for lips, tongue, the hard safe circle of your arms Indoors, art-strewn walls sing and remember our passion’s roar We are animals sated, panting Love-slick drops roll down our limbs entwined At night I sink into a white-pillowed embrace Dreaming ecstasy, dreaming bliss The seeds of hunger buried deep, fermenting Morning dawns and I lie curled in your apostrophe You whisper the day’s excitement Enchantment is birthed anew
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Beach
Sunshine melts into jeweled waters Wave after foamy tumbling wave insouciantly approaches wetted sands A community of graywhite gulls awaits sunset Pods of black-suited surfers bob companionably over the far reef Determined walkers leave deep-heeled prints Wide empty seaweed-strewn sands beckon, remembering summer crowds Shoes in hand, we amble where ocean meets earth, leaving no trace
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Belongingness
On weekends, she wandered across late-80’s on-trend gray-carpeted floors, regarding the mauve sectional they bought after hours of agonizing over seating choices. She walked right through the living room to the front door and peered listlessly out into the blinding-bright Phoenix sun. Then back again, this time through the kitchen with its white tile and whitewashed-mauve cabinets, over to the family room that the house’s one visitor said needed personal touches (tchotchkes, she thought — yuck) and then it would feel like a home. She wandered because there was nothing else. No long streams of adding-machine tape to pore over, looking for the one mis-entry that kept everything from adding…
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Moonlight Serenade
Twenty years ago, a little more, I walked. Nighttime solo walks. Walks under the light of the moon. Walks to breathe cool air and smell the damp on cut grass and hear distant dogs singing to the sky. Almost every night, in all weather, but especially after a snow. It doesn’t snow where I live now. I don’t miss it, but I remember how I loved the sounds of snow shovels patiently scraping driveways, and I especially remember how quiet the world is underneath a white soft blanket. Those walks, those twenty-years-ago-walks, were my sanity and salvation, my private world-wide Quiet Thinking Space. I do some of my best thinking…