occasional posts by risa aratyr
risa’s writing and writings about writing
A lousy, little knot has been tightening in my belly since I got that email this morning. The missive provided me a link to a site called “Watchdog” and promised that if I fed the site my address, it would regurgitate the data as a map of my home and neighborhood; a “house” icon … Read more Feeding the Beast
Gosh, look at all this amazing new stuff we taxpayers own since we started saving the economy! Manchester United Football Club, Bear Stears, Fannie & Freddie… What? You mean… we’re not following Dennis Kucinich’s sensible-sounding proposal to give Americans partial ownership of institutions receiving bailout money? Hmph! So, I can’t spend my tax dollars … Read more Sea-Change
Three weddings and three funerals in three weeks. You don’t have to be a mystic to note the numeric significance. On my calendar, this synchronous cascade of life-and-death events has been tumbling through the waning Hazel Moon and into the waxing Vine, bridging the dark transition between the two and spanning the Equinox-tide. In my lexicon, … Read more The Reckoning
When Jim told me he had cancer, it didn’t much worry me. It was in his fingertip. They amputated the digit at the joint, threw his cancer in the trash. Good riddance. His finger stump was intriguing; even cool in that weird “lemme see your scar” kind of way. Turned out, that wasn’t the … Read more Eulogy
When the oak tree fell last December, it crushed my daughter’s car and robbed the potato vine of its fence. The unsupported lianas have been heaped at the base of the oak tree’s stump ever since — a gigantic ball of brown twine with a few green threads stretched over the top. We cut … Read more In the Heart of the Season