She’d had the filing cabinet since college, or maybe even high school. It was a bland almond color and it leaned to the right under the weight of all the files. It was a struggle to open the drawers. When she did, the drawer scraped against the metal sides of the cabinet, opening to reveal a mess of papers, their crumpled corners poking out of worn manila file folders.
There was no real organization to the drawers.
She had categorically filed in the beginning, but the sheer number of papers now prevented an orderly system. The drawers of the two-drawer cabinet could not hold any more folders. She was considering buying a larger cabinet.
Each filed note or paper represented a hurt, a slight, or a rude comment. She hadn’t filed based on intent. There wasn’t a drawer for intended hurts or a second drawer for accidental digs.
On rainy days, when the kids were busy playing, she’d go into her bedroom and slowly open a drawer. For some reason, she couldn’t resist re-visiting the hurtful comments written on the worn pages. Continue reading →
Love isn’t grand gestures, flowery platitudes, or mountains of toys. Love doesn’t require self-sacrifice on the part of the giver. Love doesn’t demand service from the recipient.
“Dad’s here!” Instead of heading to the door to greet him, she ran to her bedroom to change her shirt. As he walked into the living room, she came walking in from the hallway wearing a hand-me-down t-shirt. She smiled up at Mark, and said, “Hi, Daddy!”
The front door flew open. I looked up just in time to see him toss his helmet on the couch. “Mom! You got the house phone, right? Did dad call?”
Jenny can’t fall asleep unless she leaves her lamp on. (We’re working on that.) I usually wake somewhere in the night, stumble down the hall, reach over her sweet, eyelash-framed face and quietly turn off the lamp.
Last week I got a 
Gawd!
My grandma called it goulache (goo-lah-key). She didn’t use paprika like they do in a genuine Hungarian Goulash. My version is more of a whatever’s-in-the-kitchen-pantry variety. It’s a take on spaghetti sauce only the vegies are chunkier and the sauce is wetter. I always make a big batch so as to have some to put in the freezer. It’s great to have extra on hand for ski days or those days when I’m not wanting to go to the store, which happens to be just about every day.
I walk by this chair multiple times a day. I’ve swept the dust bunnies of cat hair away from the rolled paper legs. I’ve straightened the legs after one of us has cut the corner too tight and clipped the edge of the chair on our way to the kitchen. Each time I walk by, I wonder what it might be like to be light enough to sit down on this delicate chair.
I can’t deliver a swift ass-kicking to Mubarak, save all those children and spread a blanket of calm and peace over Egypt.
