Never Mind

I sift through piles of hard plastic cases, many of the names and titles long forgotten, after nine years in my attic. “What are those Mama?” My daughter asks. “Music,” I say. There must have been hundreds of CD’s spread out in front of me, all listened to, all loved, at one time, back when buying music was a commitment and not a whim we acted upon while playing on our laptops or phones.  It was the pre-download era, a time when you didn’t buy songs but you bought albums. Every title I scanned in that pile was more than … Continue reading

Boys

The Dude would go off for hours, to the field, the butterfly bush, the playground, or underneath a chaise lounge in a fortress built with towels. Most of the time he was with Jack, the Dude’s best friend, a surrogate brother, with whom he spends his summers at the town pool. Jack is a good boy, a really good boy, with an even keeled disposition that tempers my son’s occasional moods. They have the same imagination, which allows them to play with Legos or boats or collect leaves or rocks or catch butterflies for entire afternoons. I call the Dude … Continue reading