Our silent fire
On a recent summer evening, my husband and I sat by the fire pit in our home north of Chicago and watched the dancing flames, tired but satisfied. If someone had been watching us, they might have thought, “Now there’s a couple who have nothing to talk about.” But after 38 years of marriage — and a day of riding a bike and working in the backyard — I thought, “Who else could I do this with? Who else would I want to do this with?” Hours later, we checked the embers, covered the pit, and went to bed wordlessly.— Ellen Blum Barish
Message from a mother
A few days after my single immigrant mother took her life, I dreamed that she appeared to me, then seven years old with no close relatives in Canada, and offered some advice. When I woke up, I couldn’t remember what she said, although her voice remained lively. When I was 40, I walked a slippery road, learning that she did love me, that nothing was my fault, that I could raise myself. Although the words of her message often change in my mind – evolving to fit my life circumstances – I know it was a feeling of protection and love. — Anne Sladen
Between the sunflower stalks
August in a West Virginia sunflower field, early in the morning but already hot. Charlie’s blue helmet bobs through brilliant yellow flowers. He smiles as I watch other babies among the sunflower stalks. I envy their round heads, symmetrical faces, bare scalp. Suddenly I miss Charlie’s scent, so I duck under his helmet to kiss his cheek. “Why can’t I have a helmet like Charlie?” my oldest son moans and pulls at my shorts. A seed of jealousy planted in him, also the root of my own problems: believing that our gifts are a burden, the inability to recognize our own bloom. — Anna Rollins
A place of creation
I saw myself in the mirror and instinctively stopped getting dressed: that’s when I saw my beauty. I wasn’t the “weird” who desires multiple partners, the “promiscuous” bisexual, or the “cold-hearted” aromatic (all labels I’ve come across during adolescence and even adulthood). I was just me: free, dignified, human me, and my love for myself was infinite. And so I sat down to draw for the first time in months. — Kim Schmidt