Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Category: Edges of a Thing
I Think This is What Grief Looks Like
What are the ten thousand things you’ve done wrong?Is there a list? Did you keep a list? It’s not too late to compile.You could leave room for more, the list can be open-ended, just set another place at the table. Runners wear weighted vests.They… Continue Reading “I Think This is What Grief Looks Like”
Tiny Steps in Some Direction
My petunias are getting leggy. This is always the time of the year when they get leggy and I turn again them, resent their not keeping themselves thick and lush. I would have to sit out there on the front porch for three hours… Continue Reading “Tiny Steps in Some Direction”
My New Learning Curve
Well, today I learned that if you buy a $39, nuclear weapons protection grade, red birdfeeder that requires each bird to create a unique registration number not shared with any other bird in order to partake of any seeds, then the squirrels will suddenly… Continue Reading “My New Learning Curve”
It’s a Hard Knock Life, So I’ve Heard
Remember toys that came in cereal boxes? Decoder rings and such? Well, our ever-hungry backyard squirrel, the one who has been raiding the bird seed bin for days came up on the porch and chewed the heck out of the beloved super-duper green plastic… Continue Reading “It’s a Hard Knock Life, So I’ve Heard”
Blessed are the Well-Wishers, I Guess
What you write about and what you want to write about are two different things a lot of the time. I want to write about how some condolences feel like diagnostic quests. How are you doing? No, how are you really doing? Is that… Continue Reading “Blessed are the Well-Wishers, I Guess”
Floating is Fine as a Strategy
“You don’t have to decide everything right now.” It was the funeral director who said this first but since that meeting a month ago, I’ve said it to myself a hundred times. I don’t have to have a plan. I don’t have to weigh… Continue Reading “Floating is Fine as a Strategy”
All the Things will Leave
I’m giving my mother’s afghan to Goodwill. It is pretty but very scratchy. Just writing that makes me feel like the afghan being scratchy is an insufficient reason to put it in the used blanket bin at Goodwill. So, I am feeling guilty about… Continue Reading “All the Things will Leave”
I’m Not a Wreck, I am Super Functional
I’m not a wreck. I am super functional. I have to be because there is so much to do. That said, I just spent an hour giving myself a pedicure because to not do so would have an adverse effect on my mental health.… Continue Reading “I’m Not a Wreck, I am Super Functional”
Father’s Day Homage to Howard
I’d like to write about the father my husband is but I want to be done reflecting on the last six weeks where his remarkable stamina and endless calm felt like an enormous, weighted blanket someone bought to suppress my flaming anxiety since he… Continue Reading “Father’s Day Homage to Howard”
What I Didn’t Say at My Daughter’s Funeral
I didn’t say that when she came here from Nicaragua when she was seven, she could catch fish with her bare hands. I saw her do this. At first, I thought it was an accident, a lucky grab. But then I realized that she’d… Continue Reading “What I Didn’t Say at My Daughter’s Funeral”
Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
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