Former Career Fire and EMS Lieutenant-Specialist, Writer, and Master Photographer.
Tag: Childhood
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“Being a queer girl isn’t something you decide. It’s something you survive, until you get old enough to claim it.”—Emily Pratt Slatin There are days—quiet, ordinary, well-behaved days—when everything is working just as it should. But somewhere in the periphery, somewhere behind the steady cadence of utility and discipline, something far more primitive stirs: the…
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I went down to the river today because I needed to remember who I am. Not the version people expect. Not the one who always has the answer or the fuse already lit. Just me. Alone with the trees and the current and the kind of silence you can’t get when other people are around…
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The air is cool and heavy with the scent of pine. Through my open window I hear the wind whispering in the branches—a gentle hush that carries me back to the first woods I ever loved. I remember being a little girl at summer camp, sitting cross-legged by the fading campfire on the final night.…
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They came barefoot through the ash and glass,dragging the hem of history behind them like it owed them something.Daughters of memory—etched in the brittle pages of notebooksthat never made it out of the fire. They did not arrive with lullabies or lanterns,no soft hands,no rosaries tucked into coat pockets. They didn’t knock.They didn’t ask. I…
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I’m out on the porch when the call comes through. The local tractor dealership is on the line, letting me know that my new mower deck—a long-awaited upgrade—is being assembled and will be delivered in the next couple of days. I thank them by name, because by now they answer with Hey Emily, as if…
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When I was little, I used to imagine myself barefoot and wild, running through fields that never ended—thick with tall grass and wildflowers, the air alive with monarch butterflies swarming around me like they knew I belonged there. In those dreams the sky was a fearless blue, the sun gentle on my skin, and I…
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I was raised by a father who tried to script every facet of my life. Each day was dictated by rules that my mother and I never agreed to. Having given up on trying to control my mother, he focused on me. He decided what I wore, what I could say, even what dreams I…
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As far back as I can remember, my childhood was haunted by a profound sense of fragility. While other kids were preoccupied with cartoons and playground games, I was grappling with questions of life, and death. I carried a storm inside me even as a little girl—a churning cloud of existential dread that lived under…
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When I was a teenager, I discovered the roof of my parents’ house wasn’t just made of shingles and nails—it was made of silence. It was made of peace. It was the only place I could go where the rest of the world couldn’t follow, and more importantly, wouldn’t try. It started the way most…
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I found myself back in my hometown again this week, back in the house where it all started, spending time with Darlene—my childhood best friend, my code friend, the only person left on this planet who knows the whole damn story and stayed anyway. Darlene and I were thick as thieves back then, always up…
