Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Tag: 42 words
Stuck in the Past
Look in the garage attic. Just pull the rope and the stairs will come down. It’s probably been twenty years since we’ve been up there but I know that’s where she’s hiding. I hear her sometimes late at night, skittering around, scratching.
Reconstruction
It took me weeks to make this. I had to go all over town to find the pieces. That tarp, the stakes, all that rope to hold it up. It’s my home, man, and you just trashed it like it was nothing.
A Blessing on This Day
Talked today with a woman just retired from the shelter she founded years ago, she beamed describing bringing homeless people inside, hardest to serve, rough, drunk, rule-breakers, her people, ‘there but for fortune’ she told me, no distance between us and them.
Renewal
The wonder of Christmas Eve is: Twelve eggs cracking Eleven chains tangling Ten shirts unraveling Nine people crying Eight glaciers melting Seven cities crumbling Six children leaving Five arguments flailing Four mistakes repeating Three gifts returning Two people quitting One more chance appearing
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 May 27, 2020
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
