I like to image there’s a place called The Time Store. In my fantasy, the Time Store is located in a strip mall near my house, right between CVS and the dry cleaner. A bell tinkles when I push open the door. I enter and squint into the dim light.
Gifts in Disguise
The best gift I ever received was a total surprise. The package was deceiving. It didn’t look like a gift. It looked like a disability.
Perfectly Imperfect
When my kids started school I realized how much I’d missed living on an academic calendar. During those years between college and having children, I’d lost touch with the clean slate feeling that comes with fall. New shoes, new notebooks, new school year. A chance to start over.
The Higher Purpose of a Crush
My first crush was wildly inappropriate. I was in fourth grade. He was in his thirties. I was a naïve North Dakota farm girl. He was a Confederate blockade-runner with a sardonic sense of humor.
The State of Calm
Over the summer, most of us engage in some form of physical travel. We use cars, planes, trains, or boats to get from where we normally reside to a different place, one that’s warmer, more scenic, more relaxing, or just more interesting because it isn’t home.
The Golden Age of Reading
And if you’re a certain kind of kid, the type who would rather be with Harry Potter than with real people, then summer is a feast of words.