Hands, by Camilla Schade

We had a yellow kitchen in Beverly when I was 5. I remember this specifically because the early sun bounced off the walls and the place glowed. Uncharacteristically, I was awake and up before the rest of the family. The house was quiet. This kitchen mine. I don’t remember how it started but I was alerted to the shadows my fingers cast on the table and for what seemed like a very very long time — I created silhouette finger ballets. Birds, butterflies, bugs — dancing hands — sun puppets — shape shifters — movement and mirror — and with an awareness of this happening outside of myself yet part of myself. These were my fingers but I was watching them and they delighted me. The sunlight was a wave upon which I was perched. I was riding the swell — exhilarated but still calculating, but still free, but still leading, but still following, still thinking, but still allowing. I was colluding with the magic. I was the magic. I was the puppeteer of magic, manipulator and manipulatee.

The sun may have simply moved on, my 5 year old self found another distraction or others began disturbing the quiet — but it ended I guess.

Framed on my wall is a tempura painting I did at the age of 4. The girl-being in the painting is of fat brush strokes and I think she is doing something to her hair. But most of all she is beaming. She is simply happy. I framed it because of that. I figure that child might just still live inside me. If she is there, I could have faith.

Because after the age of 5, things went screwy — parents, school. I became a stressed out little girl for years. Later, I tried to give myself away. I lost myself. I denied her. I wondered who the hell she was and what for. But that morning in the sun — and only now I think of this — I was experiencing power. I was experiencing the soul of my creativity. That little girl was expansive in that moment but so detailed in the movements. It was a beaming partnership with the sun god and with the silence. She was most present with herself — her hands transcending time for that passage of sun. I am remembering those hands. My hands. My hands.

The Last Library in the Last Brownstone, by Rob Sullivan

Quaint wood paneling

Harkens back to times, simpler

And to the point

Family extended and unfurled

Like a great heron

Making her nest home

Aunts and grandchildren

Taking flights of fancy

Through musty pages and beyond

Sacred moments sharing stories

Visited the first, second

And hundredth time round

House full of comedy, tragedy,

Drama, and the gentle, long

Silences of reading space shared

Brownstone known as safe haven

To family, friends, neighbors

Kindred and kin

Bustling holidays brimming

Get-togethers going on

Wayfarers welcomed and cherished

Time, energy, sacrifice and love

Abundant, grateful, elastic

As loaves and fishes

This was and is still

A sanctuary for all those

Near and far

With a rhyme to weave

A song to sing

Or a story to tell

Typewriter, by Yvonne Fisher

1. I took a typing class in High School and learned to use all ten fingers but I never got fast enough. I was always slow.

2. We used to practice typing sentences that I barely remember now:  "every good boy deserves….." Something like that. What does every good boy deserve?

3. I used to stay up till 3 a.m. typing papers, cramming at the last minute every time. Every single time. My mother and brother slept patiently in their beds while I went mad in the kitchen on my old black typewriter from the year one.

4. This was the kitchen where my father had died the year before. I typed frantically, insanely. Did I know anything? Nothing. I was like Jack Kerouac On The Road, driving aimlessly with fervor, searching for meaning. In that little kitchen I was searching like a crazy person. I thought they should put me away.

5. The later it got the more I deteriorated. I quietly raided the refrigerator and the cabinet with the big tin of cookies, leaving only enough to hide the evidence. I found random crackers in the back. I needed the crunch, the salt, the sweet. I needed to fill my mouth, to fill myself up, to fill up. There was no stopping, no thinking, no breathing. Just chew and swallow. Eat myself into oblivion. And then type.

6. I was in a hole. I was procrastinating, even then, at the last minute. I gave myself pep talks. I walked in circles. I read books. I tore out my hair. I wasn't fit to live. My life was a failure. Nothing would come of me. I drew pictures, doodles. My self esteem was zero. This was my secret. Everything was a secret. I lived in my angst. Nothing made sense. Thoughts were swimming around. I could feel my heart beat. No one would ever love me.

7. Every good boy deserves favor. Was that it? Something.

8. In my bottom feeding misery I got a glimpse of something. What was it? A hint of something. I couldn't put my finger on it. Maybe that this was not real. Or this was not all there is. Or I was not alone in my suffering. Or it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. Or maybe I wasn't as bad as I thought I was. Just a hint. Unformed. A glimmer. I reveled in it. Whatever it was. A reprieve. A glimpse of God. Something.

9. I recently found a paper I had written in High School called "Slavery in the USA."  It was neatly typed and put in a folder with a picture I drew of a white hand and a black hand reaching for each other. It was a short paper filled with sentiment and superficial claptrap. Unbelievably embarrassing. I remember how important that paper was for me to write. It was a beginning for me.

10. After staying up till 3 or 4 a.m. I finally went to sleep for 2 or 3 hours. Then I woke up, took a shower, ate breakfast, got my paper, put my coat on and went to school. I pretended to be a normal person.

Time, by Stacey Murphy

Time, you are not the icy fist some think you to be. Nor are you the grains of slick sand dribbling through the fist’s clenched fingers. You are not the loose board waiting to trip us up, the too-tight turtleneck, the too-short shoelace, or the heavy-eyelid last 20 minutes of a late-night journey.

You never change, though I have.

As a child I counted you in the number of times a streetlight changed, watching for the headlights of the car and the turn signal in the dark that meant my parents were almost home from work. When I was thirteen I counted you in the number of MTV videos that a bored summer afternoon could contain. 

I have counted you in steps across a marching band field, in ages of cats, in moments of sunlight this evening compared to last night, last week, last month. In number of emails I could squeeze in before the next meeting. In breaths in, breaths out. In lullabies left on this CD before I could put the tiny sleeping boy down and creep away without him waking up. In days left until the deadline. In how long the drive to afterschool will take.

I count you in spite of taking my watch off three years ago, on the day I decided to no longer be shackled by my wrist to you — and I like us so much better now.

My favorite times are our little leaps of faith together. When I paddle out onto a lake knowing I have to be back at 6, and instead of thinking about it I just turn back when it feels right — and I get there at 5:53. Or when I leave the house late, and while waiting in traffic, take a deep breath and tell myself, “you have plenty of time” — and still get to the meeting right as it is starting.

The moments of my days are not fleeting, or slow. Not abundant, or scarce. They just are. Each and every moment, on its own, just . . . is.

And when I remember that, so much more becomes possible.

Endless Feet, by Sue Crowley

street scenes make me want to travel — 

to walk worn, winding cobblestone alleys 

in out-of-the-way towns — 

going nowhere in particular

while imagining their ancient origins

was this a cow path three thousand years ago?

a footpath through a small village two thousand years ago?

I want to walk up and down steps 

carved by endless feet 

into the shape of a vague smile — 

smiling all the while at the impermanence of stone

surrounded by reminders of the past 

and a long gone multitude of others 

I feel at once fragile, delicate, and small — 

meandering with this body

one more passing along — 

conscious yet ephemeral

Holy, by Maureen Owens

My morning is already filled with snow geese,

a glittering necklace against the blue blouse of sky.

This morning, flight in all directions;

a barely organized group just lifting off

heads west toward Seneca,

while a properly aligned gaggle

gracefully sails east to Cayuga.

In the fields, hundreds of white heads,

late risers, perhaps still discussing their course.

My holy moment —

as drivers speed by, eyes ahead, coffee in hand,

unaware of the splendor

to be had by looking up, around,

inside and beyond