Stories Inspired by Life in Rural Brazil
My humble thoughts on the meaning of life, how to live deeper, love better, and all that whatnot.
Last week Facebook gave me a flashback to an old memory. Just after we came to the farm six years ago, I achieved a feat of true endurance and moved 33 wheelbarrows of dirt in one day–wildly surpassing the work of the men. This memory happened in the same week that there was lots of …
What wheelbarrows and the Boston Marathon have in commonRead More
Yesterday I had a life lesson served up to me by a little tree frog. We’ve all been in his shoes…He was just minding his business, having a day, and he decided to sit down on a bench to rest. And then it started to rain. And then someone went and pulled the bench out from …
I poured my morning cuppa today and looked down and realized this old boy was looking a little worse for wear. And this is the best one of the lot. Ceramic floors are really unforgiving. Nothing makes me long for the architecture (and hardwood floors) of my native New England than one more shattered coffee …
What was that in that dark corner? Chipped paint? Or was it… My daughter had been running all over this stadium with that diaper.. She had been playing in that corner. Was it…? It couldn’t be. I stood there by the door, barefoot, with no paper towels at hand (Sketchy Bathroom had been out of them by 11p.m.), armed only with the diaper wipes in my bag, I contemplated looking closer at what that might have been… just in case. I contemplated getting down on my knees and cleaning that floor, walking all the way across that hall with handfuls of poopy diaper wipes to brave that bathroom… And I turned my head and walked out the door.
Two painful losses in one week Goddamn you, world. You just gotta kick a gal when she’s down. Leonard Cohen died this week, one of my favorite poets. This loss coming on the heels of Trump winning the election in the USA, and the Republicans taking both the House and Senate. Seriously, life just isn’t fair sometimes. …
Broken Hallelujah: on losing Leonard Cohen and the ElectionsRead More
My students were bickering over who had stars on the Awards Wall. One was proud of her achievements, but disgruntled that there were other students’ on her heels–soon to achieve the same thing she did. Negativity is not allowed in my English classes. I watched the dynamic for a minute, conjugated a few verbs in …
He flopped out of the basket and righted himself. Taking in his surroundings, he wandered on unsteady feet out of the kitchen and in an uncertain direction to explore the world. Grandma scooped him up and placed him back in the basket with a tch of her tongue. “That kitten is hungry. What a shame! Look …
I’m a little late on this post. We arrived in Brazil on September 9, 2011. Somehow I blinked and this year’s September anniversary rolled by. I’ll blame it on the pregnancy, my scapegoat for all things memory-related in 2013. Last year on my one-year anniversary here I wrote about how life will slip by unless you …
She stopped by to visit and asked to see the new crib. I adore it; it’s lovely and the symbol of so many dreams of to come. Of course I’d be happy to show it. She’s expecting too. Conversation naturally turned to comparing mama notes. I showed her the new dresser we got to go …
