The Yellow House

What seems like eons ago, I studied in Valencia, Spain. Spain agreed with me. It wasn’t hard to settle into a life of afternoons on the Mediterranean, late suppers and later nights out, wide avenidas, weekends in the countryside. Oranges grew in the streets. Things were older, slower. » Click to read more

“Oh, this is worse than I thought,” Allen says. “You’re lucky. See these bare wires? A giant fireball could have come barreling out at you! If that had happened, it would have singed off all your hair. Or blinded you.” I examine the little greasy metal box Allen is showing me. The wires do look a bit dubious. “I’m going to have to come back tomorrow.” I’m glad Allen is here. He’s the oven repair man, and it’s his second time at the house. He and I are becoming close. He wants to go fishing down at the creek, he says, and he’s going to teach Ben how to hunt deer. “And make sure NOBODY turns on that oven.” Somehow, the fact that we narrowly escaped a lit-gas fireball incident is unsurprising to me. It might even be an apt metaphor for the past few weeks, a whirlwind of growings-up and new beginnings and startings-over. My little sister, so much more than a sister and best friend, graduated college, leaving me bursting with pride and also feeling a bit wrecked. A friend got her dream job and is off to Texas, far away. All of nature, cultivated and uncultivated, seems to be echoing the forward motion, transitioning into a new stage. The trees shook off pretty blossoms and replaced them with lush green. Peas are ready to set fruit. The ducklings are growing up far too fast—I swear, they shoot up at least an inch a day—, seedlings have no need of being sheltered inside anymore, and oh, our favorite tiny hen (or what we thought was a hen) crowed the other day. » Click to read more

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls. » Click to read more