• Magical

    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…

  • Time Machine

    All The Pretty Little Horses

    At 6, given a shiny penny to throw into the tinkling fountain at the mall we visited once a year in order to buy school clothes, I knew exactly what to wish for. I closed my eyes tight, imagined the elegant, stately horse I knew would be mine one day, and threw the penny into the water, feeling that odd mix of anticipation for something wonderful happening someday and regret for having thrown something valuable away. At 7 in the car, we’d pass horses sometimes. Living in what was once a cowtown and now was an emerging bedroom community of physicists and engineers and their kids, we were surrounded by…