Article voiceover
Days after the baby birds have flown away, their hatched eggs are overrun by ants. All my dead dogs haunt me. I hear their toenails clatter against the floor as they scramble through my memory. I didn't learn to cook as a child because we were poor and all the food was canned— but I knew how to boil so I boiled inside out. Love itself isn't rare but our caretaking of love is haphazard and too often spare. A memory of the clothesline where my t-shirts dried into the shape of an Indian boy straining against the pins that he wanted to escape. He fell in love with the wrong twin and doubled his venial sins. At midnight, I see that I've forgotten to close the blinds so the morning light is sure to wake me too early. I could change this future—I dread what dawn will bring— but I'm far too tired to get out of bed. God's love for the atheist goes unrequited. That possibility scares me a bit. So maybe I should call myself undecided. In Seattle, the rain and rain and rain. Dear Sky, please stop this baptism, this cleanse, because I'd like to retain a few layers of the pain that makes me who I am. That dragonfly lands on my sister's purse. Our dead mother worshipped dragonflies so we choose to believe that she returned to us for a few silent minutes before she left us again. My suitcase is too small to fully contain all my joys and sorrows. They tumble and unravel on every road that I travel.
Perfect. Like pieces in a treasure box, individually laden but speaking together.
Ouch ((the dog one caught my heart))!!