a judge, a photographer, a postmistress
measuring time in moments, not months
They arrived in December. The first, early in the month. The other, after Christmas. She’d forgotten to wrap them but it’s not as if I didn’t know what they were; my mother had mailed me one every year for the thirty years I’d lived out west. The annual “Around the Harbor” calendar in all its technicolor glory. Glamour shots of Boothbay Harbor, outlying islands, sailboats and lighthouses, photographed by the region’s resident shutterbug.
My mother dated the photographer the year after my father left. She’d survived the harshest winter in recent memory, carrying armloads of wood, feeding fires, feeding eleven-year-old me…
This flash essay was published in Rock Salt Journal: A New England Literary Journal, Spring 2023
Beautiful. And heartbreaking. And far closer to my own experience that I'd like to...
Thank you Amie. Your writing is beautiful and this piece brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for the reminder...measure our time together in moments not months. Sending you hugs.