Category: expectations
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The Things I Keep Forgetting to Remember
For Us. Milk (I don’t drink milk.) Bread (I tell myself I don’t eat bread Mondays-Fridays.) Toilet paper (Where does it go?) Stop using the word “thing(s)” in blog post titles (Writing 101, Ashley.) Of course, there are more substantial things on this list, but every time I have a moment of remembering the important…
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Sorry I Ate All the Cookies
She skipped town for the weekend and left a Tupperware container on the counter filled with chocolate chip cookies. She had stayed up late one night baking them, clanging baking sheet after clanging baking sheet I heard downstairs at an unusual hour, said it was really only a recipe from the back of the chocolate…
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Needed
Somewhere deep down, we all want to feel needed here, beyond Can you count these paper clips? Way beyond Turn in your time sheets. So far beyond Pay your doctors’ bill or It’s time for your colonoscopy.
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Summers at the Lake: Why We Talk About Leaving
It seems we ask about plans for leaving mid-bend and swing on the summer’s first cannonball off the wooden dock. We’re handing over the SPF30, Can you get my back?, and it has yet to soak in before we ask, And when are you leaving?, condensation barely pooling on our defrosting cans in the North…
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Lessons from a Lifeguard
I overheard the teenage girl lamenting her new lifeguard duties at a quiet pool. How is lifeguarding going? Are you loving it?, asked the neighbor, who seemed expectant of reports of contentment with youthful summer bliss. Surely, the girl’s bronzed skin and luscious locks had prepared for 16 years for a job of this Baywatch caliber. It’s…
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Do you know how to count it all joy?
I saw a man fishing at the lake yesterday. He wore black knee-high boots and stood in the water that came about halfway up his boots. I bet the water felt cold, as we’ve barely kicked the frost in Maryland. He just kept standing there in his baggy khakis draped over his boots, holding his…
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Traveling back for the strength to come home
They asked me, “What brought you back?” “Just to visit,” I said. “Just to see you.” (Did I need a better reason?) This weekend, I had a few options for reunions: high school, college, or grad school. I nearly vomited at the Facebook invite for a ten-year high school reunion. Somehow reliving those years…
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The school of home
Today, I am mad. I am mad because I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and I refused to make an effort to roll over to the right side and try again. I am mad because the coffee beans spilled out of the coffee maker and into the dirty sink when…
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If time could talk
On tonight’s agenda: family dinner. My brother’s long-time girlfriend will pick up pizzas from Anthony’s, one large brushchetta and one large pepperoni. He texted in the group family chat, Does this work for everyone?, as if the guy at Anthony’s doesn’t know our name and our order and my womanly status by heart, every…
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On battered & shattered expectations.
Honestly, I sometimes dream about making this blog less hygge. For those living under a rock, hygge is the Danish word for cozy and this funny obsession that many writers and shows have mocked as people have flocked to build a “hygge lifestyle” in an attempt to solve all of their world’s problems. The New Yorker piece called “Is…
Ashley Fenker 