Don’t Circle Your Target

Why write 3 full paragraphs leading up to your main point in your writing, when you can do it in one? I asked myself this question after reading a recent blog post, “The Art of Submission: Inquiring After Our Work.” Good title. I was interested in reading the post. Like most nonfiction writers, I read anything I can get my [...]

Home Cooking

Timmy and I never felt neglected when it came to the availability of food. Mom believed preparing three meals a day to be one of her many housewife duties. Watching Julia Child on television was as regular a practice as going to Mass on Saturday nights. “This is not how it turned out for Julia,” she’d say hunched over the [...]

feet make life stories

Do you take a look at your feet – ever? Or maybe you only notice them when you go to fit yourself with a new pair of shoes. But do you really look at them? Do you notice changes from chubby feet as a kid to now with slender toes and narrow arch? If only your feet could narrate a [...]

The Bathroom

The upstairs bathroom on Carlisle Avenue was at the top of the red carpeted stairs, middle of the hall. This kid’s bathroom came standard equipped with a bathtub, showering capabilities and a toilet on one wall and on the opposite wall a beige Formica counter ran the length of the bathroom. The muddy blue double sink holes, one for Timmy [...]

2014-02-24T21:35:12+00:00February 24, 2014|Categories: coming of age, home, memoir, Writing|Tags: , , , , |

What Used to Be

“The Deerfield Commons, it used to be over there, that whole block, with Waukegan and Deerfield roads fencing it in,” I muttered with a heavy sigh looking west as I drove north on Waukegan Road. I say it every time I drive into Deerfield, where I grew up, and pass that intersection. I am flooded with memories and pictures of [...]

2014-01-10T20:34:03+00:00January 10, 2014|Categories: book writing, coming of age, home, life lessons, memoir, Writing|Tags: , , , |

The Bathroom

The Carlisle house. The upstairs bathroom, the kid’s bathroom, was at the top of the stairs and in the middle of the hall. A bathtub with showering capabilities and a toilet were provided on the opposite side of the double sinks and counter. I experienced life’s measurements in the bathroom. The muddy blue double sinks were separated by a light [...]

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