centre of the universe

Category: Family

  • Small Kindnesses

    Small Kindnesses

    When my mom died, we asked people to bring rocks (she liked this Jewish tradition of remembrance) to put in a basket in her memory. Some folk painted rocks, some folks brought little ceramic knickknacks and gewgaws, others brought rocks from their gardens or farms, or maybe just from out in the parking lot. I […]

  • The Kids are Alright

    It started out fairly inocuously; Kid the Younger and their paramour, a few friends we haven’t seen in a while, and a few of KtY & P’s friends just hanging out and watching movies, playing games. Some of us were upstairs in my childhood home and some of us were downstairs. There was a bit […]

  • Caymanaymans

    I had just returned from some kind of an RPG convention where we’d been camping and doing LARP outdoors when it was nice and playing tabletop games indoors when it wasn’t. The Convention was way down Stateside somewhere but not Indianapolis. Like, we’re talking Louisiana or Georgia or something. I had managed to leave one […]

  • The Last Thing

    Grief is an oscillation between want and have, between need and want, between here and gone. It does strange things to a person. When my mother died I kept saying to my aunt, over and over, “this must be so hard for you”. A Freudian might call it transference. My aunt finally broke and asked […]

  • Olfactory Sense

    I was cleaning the bed linens this morning, which always is accompanied by a spraying down of the mattress with hydrogen peroxide & essential oils (no, not lavender; I don’t especially like lavender). Into the “warsh”, as my great-step-grandmother would say, with the sheets and mattress cover. I love doing the bed linens in summer […]

  • Labour

    There comes a point when a woman is labouring in childbirth when she says “I can’t do this”. Usually that’s a hallmark of what’s called transitional labour, and it usually means she absolutely can do it, and is likely about to do it with aplomb. Well-seasoned labour and delivery midwives have said when you hear […]

  • 40 years

    ‪Some anniversaries we don’t need to remember. ‬ ‪My father just called to remind me that it was 40 years ago today that his father, my Gramps, was killed in a farm accident. ‬ ‪Do you have a singular day that changed the trajectory of your life?‬ ‪I remember that day with crystal clarity. It […]

  • I wish I were joking

    But I’m not. If I wrote this as fiction my editors would cross it out as too far fetched. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/comedy-holiday-horrors-jillian-bell-1.4960005

  • Back to Back to School

    A Story of Parenting, Told in School Supplies Kindergarten, First Child: I purchased these school supplies over a year ago, have been awake since Friday labelling every pencil, every marker, every individual crayon, every eraser, and every individual tissue in the box. I have labelled every article of my child’s clothing, and moved on to […]

  • October 6, 1999

    It was a Wednesday. My back had been killing me ever since the games convention on the previous weekend. Wizard’s Challenge (North); we’d just pulled off the con – I’d been part of the planning team – and all reports were good. I spent much of the night stretching and cursing under my breath for […]