Sunny&80
The Smiley Faces
“MOMMMMMM-A!!!”cried my wallowing six-year old, accompanied by her trademark stomp of dissatisfaction. “It’s doing MINUSES now …that’s too HARD….” For days, exasperated sighs and incorrect buzzers had drifted from the kitchen counter at breakfast. But every once in a while, I would hear a jubilant yell: “A smiley-face! I got a smiley face! I beat the teacher! Ha ha ha ha !” It’s my hope that,…
The Boo-Boos
The screech was ear piercing, and my limbs were too slow to react to what I saw. Little limbs flew over handlebars, and skidded to a stop on the concrete. Tears streamed and knees bled. I scooped my baby up to the tune of my quickly abandoned bike crashing to the ground. My breath paused waiting for her to catch hers. Against my incessant…
The Land
Witness is woven into everyone’s life, but not all have a natural appreciation for their “place.” Clevelanders have taking a beating for decades. For the state of their city and “the curse” on their teams. I am them. “Against all odds… I don’t now why we want to take the hardest road… I don’t know why the Man above gives me the hardest road… but the…
The Last Day
The product of my rushed suburban childhood is arm-in-arm in that sandy crop of kids, traditionally appreciating the last day of school in their little lake town …where the busiest road has a 35 mph speed limit, and we can count the number of stop lights on one hand. “Rush” is absent from their vocabulary. Traditions can bloom dreams if we allow them to…
The Push
The school year is over, and I’m predictably about to cry at any given moment. Guilty of over-celebrating every moment of my daughter’s lives, they wake up on the last day of school to ballooned rooms and streamers decking out the doorway. The only way I’ve found get through the annual commencement on to the next grade level is by preparing to crumble under emotional…
Sunny&80 