Welcome 2011. It’s a year of living differently. Thinking back to last January, I remember my body telling me to slow down. I decreased my obligations. I spent more time at home. I think the biggest victory was doing what I wanted to do, even if that meant doing nothing. I began this year by…

I came downstairs Thursday morning around 10:30. Mom and Dad were discussing the turkey and what to do with it. Their 23-pound bird was done cooking in the roasting oven they always use two hours before it should have been, according to the annual turkey-cooking records they keep. Dad, from his office that looks into…

I was sitting on the stool in the kitchen, very near the door to the upstairs, talking with Kimberly as she cooked dinner. Suddenly, Priya popped out of the stairway door and came directly at me, like she’d been expecting me to be sitting there. She came at me with four fingers extended, two on…

On the way to work, I saw wild turkeys on the side of Dodge.On the way home, I saw a single blue balloon drift up into the white sky.

My phone rang from its spot on the nightstand. Hilary. Bleary-eyed, I saw the red numbers of my alarm clock. 4:44. I answered in a thick voice, with a slow mind. She was talking about the doorknob falling off. She couldn’t open the door. She was trapped. And she was cry-laughing, sounding hysterical. I could…

It’s started raining outside in soothing droves. The sun has disappeared and we are left in dark gray.But the sky above is white. An angry ocean turned on its head.The rain falls in rhythmic waves against the pavement.I am moved to the window, mesmerized.

It is early for me, and I am not a morning person. Even though the process of getting here was difficult, there’s relief when I hang my red, pink, purple and blue striped towel with stitched cats on the ends, my locker key jingling from a safety pin. And though the water is never quite…