Alex came in from playing outside and was helping wash down the kitchen table before dinner. In the background, a melodramatic old man read Ephesians via Bible Gateway’s audio tool. Children, obey your parents, his voice shuddered gravely. I turned and gave Alex a teasing… Read More
All posts by “Simply Mella”
Mosaic
I remember wooden church pews, wrapping my arm around my mother’s arm and watching her hands as they rested on her lap or turned through the delicate pages of her Bible. I remember holding mine up beside hers and studying the two: large and small,… Read More
How to Assess My Daughter
Lila had her kindergarten screening. I don’t like the wording, don’t like to consider my daughter something to be “screened” and placed as part of a track, especially one based on how well she can parrot back her ABC’s or if she draws all ten… Read More
Not So Much Cosmic Whimsy
It’s a smooth rectangle box with flowers on top. It plays Edelweiss when it is wound-up and it has a miniature skeleton key that fits in a small lock. I don’t wear much for jewelry, but it holds the few things I have. My high… Read More
Sad
I awoke to Alex at my bedside, rubbing his eyes. As I squinted through slumber, I saw his fidgeting shadow, his hands rubbing his eyes. My body wants to cry and I don’t know why. Oh, honey, come on up. I slid back and made… Read More
Berry Patch Lane
It’s a road on my GPS, a small curving line on a map, surrounded by greens and yellows. But to me, the words reads like an escape: Berry Patch Lane, a wondrous place that smells like sweet strawberries and where time slows down like an… Read More
Letters to my Daughter: The Wall
Oh My Dear Bean, You wrote on the wall last night – the recently and beautifully repainted wall. A series of windows in shades of green and yellow crayon running in a line beneath the windowsill. While I was in the other room, explaining the… Read More
Open
Ten years ago, I sat at my desk in my closet-sized office, typing fiction and quickly reopening work related windows whenever my boss would pop in to ask a question or check on how my projects were coming along. I would share writings maybe with… Read More
Know Your Role
I answered the phone because the caller ID said it was my husband. On the line though was a female voice, laughing and asking me if I wouldn’t mind confirming something Vinnie had told her. It was his coworker and they were apparently in a… Read More
Eleven
For Corinne, who so graciously gave me fodder for procrastination today in the form of eleven questions. 1. when you think of childhood, what comes to mind? Grass stains, street lights at dusk, the smell of my mother’s spaghetti sauce when I walk through the… Read More