Essays + Narratives

Spent and sunburned, my husband and I drove our two sandy, salty toddlers home from our annual family beach trip. My mind busied itself with things that needed to be done, from ordering groceries to washing beach towels to picking up our mail from the neighbors. “Want to stop at that new ice cream shop?” […]

March 2017: Washington, DC Spring has arrived in Washington, DC with cherry blossoms, pink and plump as cumulous clouds. Puffs of petals appear painted around the Tidal Basin, and the city swarms with tourists. After seven springs in Washington, peak cherry blossom week has not lost its allure. Married to a military physician, I don’t […]

The steady slap of the windshield wipers lulls me into a trance as we drive away from the only home I’ve ever known. Tears trickle down my face, leaving hot and sticky trails in their wake. I quickly brush them away, looking around the cramped car to see if anyone has noticed. Feelings aren’t entirely […]

“So I’ve been thinking about something…and I think we need to talk about it,” I said nervously over our dodgy Skype connection. Why did the picture always have to be so pixelated? Wouldn’t it be nice to just have one conversation while seeing his face clearly?  “What is it?” He asked.  I had gone back […]

I moved a useless breast pump into three different houses. After two different babies, with twodifferent lactation consultants, and two different pediatricians, and two separate verdicts, “yourbaby has lost too much weight and it is time to supplement with formula,” I still carried thatstupid pump with me into our third home. I packed it up […]

If my three daughters hold hands, they almost encircle the trunk of the giant oak we find in the woods. Thirty little fingers grasp the rough vertical ridges of her bark and climb. My eldest, due to start sixth grade in a few weeks, leads the ascent. They don’t get very far, but they try […]