sidewalk scribbling

There are people who can make a cup of coffee or start a new episode about fifteen minutes before they should be leaving for the airport (because they have a flight to catch or something) – except these are the people who would never say ‘I’m going to leave in 15 minutes’, it’s more like, a few minutes, oh, maybe a couple more, in a bit, can I at least finish my coffee? They’re the people who can simply walk at an even pace to catch their bus, or think about what they ate for dinner last night rather than outline the 7 things they will do first when their plane lands, and then an alternate 7 steps in case their bags take too long to arrive. Would it surprise you greatly if I said I don’t happen to be in the above category of people? Over-thinking and its two best friends, anxiety and guilt - picture a cheery trio holding hands and skipping towards a raging fire.  Okay, so a fire is a bit dramatic, let’s change it to a bumpy, muddy shallow hole in the ground? I ...

September 10 Words may have clear, neat meanings in dictionaries, but in real life the finite explanations tend to lose their distinctions, they move away from their specified, alphabetized places, and float smugly coyly, changing in front of our eyes, elusive, vague. And the most elusive of all are adjectives that we use to understand and color our worlds. Humans are selfish (I want to say ‘by nature’ but my social work training is preventing me from doing so). We are silly, shortsighted; tickled by how other languages sound, that’s a funny word, it rhymes with something dirty in my language, shocked at ways of living that are different from ours, you mean getting married to someone you have never dated, you mean adopting a child as a single woman, you mean sending your grandparent to an institution, you mean to say seven billion people living all over the world don’t see, hear, breathe and act like me? Confused, disgusted, even angered and indignant, female genital mutilati...