are you there, dog? It's me, kerensa

I flip old photo albums, and rifle through past love letters or letters written to me in my most homesick moments in college. I hear from a friend of a friend that their lives went on just fine without me. The old wound opens and what comes from its gaping mouth is a certain sense of grief. Over the course of our lifetimes, we meet so many people, and perhaps make many casual acquaintances, but a true and steadfast friend is a rarity. It could be the girl, who in 4th grade, had to hold her purple pleather pants up with both hands while trying to run the laps in gym class. Or the other girl who drunkenly made up (or helped to make up) your high school nickname. It could be the girl who sat with you during American history, who made you laugh till you peed a little. Perhaps the college roommate whom you fought with constantly, or the other college roommate whose parents sent you Halloween care packages. Or, it could be the boy who brought you a rose on Valentine's Day freshman year ...

It is not perfect, most certainly flawed, and yet has a certain undeniable charm about it. The walls don't quite meet in the corners, and the showerhead is at mid-chest level. The floors slant just enough so that the baby teeters and occasionally falls when walking. I try not to notice the bottoms of our feet, which are now covered in a dense grey dust, that I will find later takes more than three showers to remove. At night, the tiny black flies worm their way through the holes in the screens, and I fear that a raccoon or an errant chipmunk will discover that the rear door doesn't close completely, and will have their way with our meager camp food supply. But the view...the view is amazing. At night, the moon sends its brilliant shadow across the water and it truly looks like the lake is glowing from within, which at one time in history may have helped tired sailors to hear the Siren nymphs singing before they drowned. My sister and I stand, one night at midnight, to watch as ...

I stepped on the scale, and despite my justifications and excuses (heavy sweater, change and keys in the pocket, winter boots), the number before me was unfathomable. I have never been a petite person, one of the tallest in elementary school, one of the first to get boobs and hips, so much so that I escaped to a stall in middle school to change for gym class out of embarrassment. Most of my friends were smaller than I, fitting into the cute clothes in 5-7-9 that i could only admire from afar. I tried fad diets in high school, though let's face it- to be that size again would be heavenly. When I got to ASU, my pockets were empty, and the job market for an inexperienced eighteen year old left much to be desired. I began working at the movie theater, which meant crazy hours, unlimited free popcorn, and most importantly, an absurdly meager wage. At 4.40 an hour before taxes, I barely made enough to buy school supplies let alone feed myself, so I turned to what every college student sub...

My mother and I recently had a conversation about success. It began with her telling me of a wall they are devoting to successful graduates in her school. She told me of a former student who now works for the FBI, another who went on to master not only law school, but music and scads of other professions, and yet another who works to find cures for disease. For each of them, she had awe and respect, and the tenderness in her voice was akin to that which she reveals only when she speaks of her most prized pupils. It brought about an interesting question- what is success? She mentioned that many nominations for the wall had come in, parents raving about their daughter who became a doctor, a family who proudly proclaimed their son had been a janitor for decades in the high school...My mother was solid in her belief that while they were admirable jobs, they were not the epitome of success, and therefore could not rival for those positions on the wall. She reasoned that while all parents a...

So, you find a house after looking at three dozen, with three bored children in tow, and an exasperated husband, who says repeatedly that he does not want to have to do any "work" on a house. You look through strangers' closets, and in the darkest corners of their basements, which turn out to be creepier than they should, and you see glimpses into many lives much like your own. You notice the tacky wallpaper in the entry, the stray suspicious hairs on the bathroom floors, and the numerous piles of dog excrement littering the backyard. You make notes about the sizes of the bathrooms and bedrooms, yards and garages. You attempt to mentally arrange your own furniture in rooms normally inhabited by floral fabric loving old ladies, and try to picture your own children coming in the front doors after school. But all too often, you just don't feel "it", the overwhelming need to make this house your home, the feeling that all will be well once you get your things un...