The other day, a friend told me her childhood was boring. I’ve been thinking up questions to lead her to discover her childhood wasn’t boring after all. First, when you say your childhood was boring, were you bored, or are you saying telling your
Memoir
Two-Edged Swords
Generosity can be a two-edged sword, but both sides can seem justified. In ninth grade, I was new to blindness. The previous summer, during my one stint at a school for the blind, Oak Hill, I made friends with Al, who had lost his vision in early
Speech Therapy
In this short recollection, I am attending a school in London at the age of eight or nine. I’d had a cleft palate surgically repaired when I was too young to remember, and now I was required to undergo speech therapy. Looking back, I marvel at the
A Perfect Love
In September, here in Brooklyn, there will be a summer-warm afternoon, heavy with moisture, when an autumn front approaches. Above me is that sky that made May and June beautiful, fragrant with flower scents and optimism, but that by now has become
The Only Time I Ran for Office
Darien High School’s chess club, of which I was one of seven members, met to elect a new president. I'd begun at the club two years earlier by beating another new member twice in a row. My opponent, Jeff, now a senior like me, turned out to be our
Monty
As a wedding gift, Grandma Spratt gave my parents a cat from a litter born in her backyard. He was black except for a white stripe on his chest, and Mum and Dad named him Monty. They said that when I was born two years later, they’d worried they’d