a.rose

Rue St. Rustique by Eugène Atget or The Nearly Coherent Thoughts of a Girl in an Art Museum I have been on this street before, is what I think when it first catches my attention, and I pause to look closer. Is it the Netherlands, or Germany, Belgium, France, Austria? How can they be so separate and distinct, yet sit so closely to each other, such tight neighbors on their tiny street section of the world. Each country like these homes, piled and placed right next to each other the way my daughter builds with Legos. As if claustrophobia is a made up, imaginary thing existing only in the world of adults. I finally check the tag next to the photo, and see that it was taken in 1922, two years after my grandmother was born. The photo was printed in 1957, a year after my father was born. My grandmother passed away two weeks ago. She was 99 years, 5 months, and 28 days old. My dad, once her little baby boy, is now grandpa to my own world building, Lego loving children. But it wasn't that l...

He came into my life as a carefully guarded secret in the middle of the night. He came suddenly, unexpectedly. His arrival was the kind of surprise you didn't know you were waiting for, but once it comes you can't remember how you lived before.  My mom smuggled him into the house. I didn't even get to see him that first night.  Everyone was sleeping as I welcomed the midnight guests, and we didn't turn on the lights. We put him in my bathroom, closed the door, and went to sleep ourselves.  I first saw him the next morning, big eyes on a shivering, nervous, tiny ball of white fluff.  He had long, floppy ears, and soft silky hair.  His tail, normally curled high over his back, hung stiffly down. This was Tip, my mom told my girls and me, as we gathered around trying to contain our squeals and giggles and excitement.  My mom had called the day before she came, and asked if I could keep a secret. She told me that if I could, she would bring something really ...