It was nearly impossible not to pregame this piece--it was nearly impossible not to try to catch a line in my head so that when I hit the timer to start the five minute countdown that I would have something to dig into. The cat has just moved to the top of my feet. She …
Then Again, Though Lacking
I was sick yesterday, was sick in the sort of way that makes one droopy and useless, overly sensitive and unreliable for anything but draping oneself across surfaces and waiting for some lost thing to return. This is not how I like to be--not the me who has built a life and a self on …
Trading a Toothpick for a Pick Axe
To talk about what I would do if I knew I could not fail is to try to sort out the crossover point between tenable and untenable challenge, between manageable and unmanageable risk, and identify that thing which is just on the other side of the line which I desperately want. Relatedly, I like to …
Redistribution
I thought I could cheat it a little, today's prompt, because Matt and I started watching the movie Sound of Metal about heavy metal drummer, Ruben, who suddenly loses his hearing. And in many early scenes of this movie, we watch action overlaid with silence as the reality of hearing loss settles over Ruben, and …
One Use of Clutter
Perhaps clutter is not just mess but the compilation of good intentions piled up on tables or filling drawers? Things that will make sense later, or used to make sense and we think will again, and so they stay, they stay and molder inside our optimism. I have those--those drawers of aspiration and memory, my …
What Bailey Helps Me Remember
She's on the couch to my left, draped on the cushion in baby deer fashion, all her long legs splayed outward and converging in a point, making her look a bit like a triangle. When I look over to mark these details, she lifts her head and looks at me, flop ears, a fuzz of …
Small Medicines
In 2020, I read palliatively. Dozens and dozens of inspirational fiction novels by an author first introduced to me when I was a child by my now-many-years-gone grandmother. The scrawlings left for me by my kids on their bedroom chalkboard, or folded-to-miniscule post-its hidden on my pillowcase, or stuck to my bedside lamp. The stickers …
Turns in Its Spaces
I use walks to make claims on things. These claims are silent and hospitable--they take without taking away. They claim in a manner that allows many claimants and no disputes. They claim in the same way that we claim a sunset, or an impressive monument, or any other large or small delight in the landscape …
Addition and Preservation
In 2018, I went on a solo hiking trip to Moab, Utah. I went because at that moment in my life I needed to understand something about myself that I didn't feel I could without it--something about the truth and validity of my personhood, something about who I was, which I hoped this new context …
Resolution
It's a funny thing about me, in that I make use of the starting line of the new year while simultaneously rolling my eyes at its arbitrary power. New things, though, are useful organizing mechanisms--just don't ask me to entirely eschew the part of me that follows whim and instinct. (That Jackie painted an unplanned …
Jackie Lutzke 