Here’s a true story: I was scared of lighting matches until I was twenty years old. Twenty years later, now many books of matches under my belt, I find this both ridiculous and completely understandable. Ridiculous because matches are necessary and not really that difficult. And understandable because in order to light a match you …
Holy Curiosity About Fear: For Cara Meredith
The other day, one of my kids got upset about some schoolwork in her least-favorite subject. “You can do it,” I told her. She stared at me. I didn’t blame her. Talk is cheap. So I posed a different question. “What’s the worst-case scenario if you fail?” I asked. She told me, her eyes worried. …
A Miracle I Did Not See Coming
Inspired by my friend Addie’s second book, Night Driving. I was lucky that Sunday morning—the train was mostly empty and I scored a window seat. The whistle blew and we started juddering forward, me looking at the station, buildings, graffiti move away from me, picking up speed as the train accelerated. Out of the depths, I …