Half Light
The first and only haircut I have given was to my mother, and because we were both nervous I took my time setting up a single-seat beauty parlor in her room at the hospital in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Body of Work
This monthly column will examine the relationship between women writers and their bodies with a focus on both the internal – how these writers navigate their personal geographies of hopes, dreams, and insecurities –and the external: how they represent themselves and tell stories.
Essays in Body of Work will focus on how women redefine the narrative about their own perceived limitations and abilities. They will explore questions such as: to what extent are our bodies ever our own? How do the stories written on, by, and in our flesh inform our identity and storytelling? When are our bodies barriers to storytelling, and when do they get us access to untold stories?
A Thing of Beauty
unch at the Fournets is just as I imagined it would be. Their apartment is tidy but stylish, colorful but understated. The two girls,…
Flying the Flannel
bought my first blue plaid flannel at K-Mart—it must have been 1987 or ’88, when I was a junior in high school in small-town…
The Mule Deer
When my oldest son is the size of an apple, my belly begins to push out against my overalls. It is late summer, and the monsoons have brought a week of night rain in the Arizona desert.
Nerve
When I was 21 and working as a camp counselor, I was assigned to mentor a girl named Sylvie. “You both have epilepsy, see?” the camp director said. “It’ll be perfect.”
Tough Odds, Lady Bird
I first noticed the robin one day in early June, as she swiped dead stalks from one of the two potted lavender plants on our deck.
Tiny Little Messes
All weekend, I’ve been in bed, in the limbo land of the sick. It’s a space I know well, a territory I’ve occupied for periods of time throughout my adult life…
Trauma Is Like a Snakebite
What comes out of my mouth is the cry a dog makes after being hit by a car, a shrill whimper.
The People This Body Has Housed
Growing up in my parents’ seventies-era ranch house, my body was a misshapen thing. During playtime it became an imagined monster on the waterbed as my brothers hid inside a spaceship made out of my mother’s comforter.
Her Hair
While riding my university shuttle, I used to stare at women’s hair. They were mostly young white women like me, who would sit in rows facing each other at the front of the bus, compulsively checking their phones.
The Art of the Mistake
There are things I got wrong. I thought the reason my dad, a potter, so rarely repaired broken pots with real gold was because of money.
The Jagged, Gilded Script of Scars
I am drawing at the kitchen table, tracing the outlines of a dinosaur, when I find that my hand, in defiance of the vision in my mind, makes a line that ruins the dinosaur. There will be no dinosaur. I begin to cry. My mom, who is a weaver and works from home, comes over to see what I am crying about.