daughter

February Light.

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / 5 Comments

I am not a dog owner, but my oldest has a dog now she adores, so walking and hiking with her I’ve discovered the world of the dog walkers. Midday in full sunlight, I wander along the lake. Great puddles pool on the ice. White-throated sparrows sing late winter songs. I head through the woods from lake to library through a few inches of soft snow. I’m wearing shoes more than boots, and crumbles of icy slush soak through my socks. At the library I sit on the steps and empty my socks of ice bits and shreds of cedar greens sprinkled in the woods from the last windstorm.

A little white dog runs up to visit, curious. As I bang out my shoes to the dog’s fascination, the dog’s owner and I chat about the birds and the sunlight, and then she leaves her dog with me and heads into the library. The little creature and I ruminate about the neighbors’ cat sitting in the window. Beyond the paved driveway, mud oozes in the sunlight. Sure sign of spring.

Last, The Writing Life column in Hippocampus ran my essay this month. The essay includes:

Without wealth — as most of us are — a creative life is a dicey proposition…

First Things.

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / 2 Comments

My daughter asks me if I’ve ever almost died — or at least thought I was dying.

She’s lacing her shoes, about to head out for a run. The day has been remarkably warm and beautiful, reaching above fifty degrees.

Three times, I answer: almost drowned when I was a teenager on a canoe trip, your father averted us from a pile up in Seattle, and the anesthesia went awry at your birth.

Later, I walk up to the high school and wait for her. I sit at a picnic table behind the school. It’s the first of all kinds of things again — the first time sitting at a picnic table outside since winter, the first time this spring I’ve seen grass that appears really green. An acquaintance stops to talk, and we swap stories about the school and board, new hires. Her grown son appears, and I can’t help but remember when he was just a little kid, and now he’s all grown up.

When they’re gone, I walk around this building that has meant so many very different things to so many people. Such a long and complicated story, a microcosm of this great big world. At this moment, she and I are both a piece of this story.

My daughter returns. On our drive home, I ask why she wondered about my near-death experiences. She shrugs. Just thought I should know, she answers.

I have the odd feeling she’s gathering intel about me.