I have always been a little enamored with scientific terms. Not all of them or generally, but specific ones and intensely. Inertia, for one, has become a favorite, has often erupted into my mind and begged to be the word that I use to understand a moment. And maybe that's surprising, the stickiness of a …
Thank You, Bathtub
I was going to sit here and "think awhile" about which object I should write a thank you to, but if anyone in my household got wind of the fact that I was writing a thank you note to ANY non-human enitity BESIDES the bathtub, I would be called out as dishonest or trying to …
To Hold the Light
Identity is a squirrelly thing, because it is the thing most tightly gripped in each individual’s palm, and yet that might mean aspects of it go partly unseen. And so identity, or naming and claiming any aspect of it, becomes a risk for the individual, because that self-claimed thing may be well known to her—may …
Scent and Memory
The cold lifted slightly, and the sun came out, so I went for a walk around Irvington. I stuffed airpods in my ears and put on a playlist, and this made the walk my own, a version of it that no one could repeat, even if they went the same way. There weren't many people …
Waiting for the Tide
At some point I became the person who thinks, Oh yeah, sure, X terrible or frightening or challenging thing? Why WOULDN'T that happen to me?--entirely abandoning the youthful pressupposition that we're immune from all the hardest, most difficult aspects of human life. But at some point, all that stuff--the difficult, bad, frightening things--all that stuff …
Art Gallery
I got in my car after work today so that I could get a coffee and drive around. I don't know if the appeal of driving around makes sense unless you are likewise a person who relates to the desire to get in a car and cruise around purposelessly for an undefined stretch of time …
Nomads
The cool thing about being the boss faciltator of the #writerly program is I get to gently nudge people toward types of writing that excite me. And so today is that: a reflection in ~100 words. Every Monday something happens: either the kids leave or they arrive. This is the pattern of co-parenting, our version …
The Table
In 2019 I bought a new dining room table. At the time I bought it mostly to make it easier to host Creative Nights, something I used to hold at my house every other Friday night, for a number of creatively inclined co-worker friends. These friends would gather and talk and drink and write and …
Stone Rabbit
Between the backside of the McDonald's and an outdoor storage facility on Indianapolis' east side, where I live, is a through road that connects the restaurant parking lot with the Pep Boys parking lot and then the road. It's the way I always leave McDonald's, preferring to chart my return to busy Washington Street via …
Mistakes
I shouldn't be grouchy about responding to any of these prompts, because I wrote many of them, and I think I wrote this one (Andrea [my Writerly partner-in-crime] -- please correct me if I'm wrong. And if so, you're in trouble. jk, jk). I don't like making mistakes. I spent last night thinking about (worrying, …
Jackie Lutzke 