Tag: remembering

  • What Remains

    There is something strange about the way we think about cemeteries. We call them places of death. We imagine them beneath gray skies, wrapped in fog, their crooked stones standing like silent sentinels in the dark. Movies fill them with shadows and whispers, with footsteps that seem to come from nowhere. We teach ourselves to…

  • The Song of the Cicada

    There is a certain sound that belongs to summer. Not the sound of sprinklers ticking across a lawn, or the distant hum of an air conditioner fighting a losing battle against the heat. I mean the cicada—that high, electric song that seems to rise from every tree at once, filling the afternoon with a sound…

  • A Manual Selfie of Sorts

    A Manual Selfie of Sorts

    Self-portraits… a manual selfie of sorts. When the world gets quiet, my thoughts usually don’t. Today, they settled on the only subject I know from the inside out: me, and the journey that’s brought me to this moment on the third rock from the sun. No what-ifs. No forecasts. No reinventions. Just who I am…

  • How Curiosity and Creativity Became the Story of My Life

    I don’t remember deciding to become a creative person. I think I just never stopped being a curious kid. Like every toddler, I was convinced the world existed solely for my investigation. Everything deserved to be touched, tasted, shaken, stacked, thrown, or, if possible, taken apart. My parents probably called it “getting into things.” I…

  • The Things We Never Meant to Remember

    It’s funny, the things we remember. Not the moments everyone tells us will matter. Not always birthdays, graduations, or the day we got the keys to our first house. Those memories are there somewhere, but they often sit quietly in the background. Instead, it’s the little things that wait patiently for us. The smell of…

  • Commencement Season: Tassels, Tears, and One Last Trip to the Snack Bar

    There’s something strange about graduation season. For four years, students spend most of high school counting down to the end of school—talking about summer, freedom, and escaping homework forever. Then suddenly, during the final few weeks, everyone starts walking around campus like they’re in the last ten minutes of a movie. People who normally sprint…

  • Life Is A Notebook

    I came across this idea the other day, and it stayed with me longer than I expected— the kind of thought that doesn’t just pass through, but settles in. Maybe it’s the way we hold onto moments—like scraps of paper, like old notebooks tucked away in drawers. Every now and then, something reminds you that…

  • Throwing Words Into the Wind

    Let me tell you a story…something I learned about myself, and only fully recently acknowledged. This won’t be a confession of weakness, nor a tale of courage or inner strength. Those are just labels. And the truth is, labels are strangers to far more people like me than most realize. If anything, this story is…

  • The Longest Day – Sanitized, Signed In, and Socially Distanced

    I’ve had long days before. I mean, who hasn’t. Everyone has a horror story or two about work, some more drink worthy than others. A friend and I were recently comparing notes over coffee, as one does when caffeine doubles as a therapist. The conversation inevitably twisted itself around the question: who had the longest…

  • Out of the Dark to Find Me Again

    So last night, I had a realization. Not one of those cinematic, lightning-strikes-the-soul kind of realizations. No dramatic music, no sudden gasp into the void. More like… sitting there, minding my business, and boom—my brain quietly taps me on the shoulder like, “Hey… you good?” And apparently, I wasn’t. Or at least, my writing wasn’t.…

  • Between Me and Myself

    Sometimes the quietest conversations are the ones we have with ourselves.They come in fragments—moments of memory, glimpses of people we’ve loved, the echo of a voice we thought we’d lost. This is one of those conversations. It started with a dream, a few small visits from my mom, a song that kept coming back, and…

  • The Bottle Brigade

    The Bottle Brigade

    There’s an unwritten law about backyard grilling that no one ever explains, but everyone somehow understands: the beer bottles will eventually line up. It starts innocently enough. A man steps outside with purpose. He’s carrying tongs like a surgeon carries instruments. The grill lid opens with ceremony. Charcoal crackles. Flames rise. Somewhere in the distance,…

  • Home Alone (Yeah, not that one…)

    Every now and then—usually when I’m sitting around minding my own business, sipping something cold, letting the world drift by—I’ll get hit with one of those memories from way back. No warning. No reason.Just… poof. A moment from my past rolls in like a lazy tumbleweed, makes itself comfortable, and says, “Remember this, dummy?” And…

  • When Memories Come Visit

    Memories have a way of sneaking up on you. One moment you’re stirring coffee, waiting for the light to change, scrolling through TikTok, and then — suddenly — you’re somewhere else. Somewhere you haven’t been in decades, but it feels as alive as ever. Today it was Plaza Olvera in Los Angeles. I watched a…