Floorboards There are faces and images in all of thefloorboards near the door of my bedroom.A witch, grinning, a dog,a wise old man, pairs of long legsa nose, too. And I watch them whileI meditate, and think about everything,and pray to not want to die. Because lately, I've wanted to die.My whole life, at times,…
Author: Stephanie Ingraham
Imperfect Places
Becoming a parent (or maybe just getting older) makes you reevaluate what matters, the values and philosophies that inform a cultivated life. It can also cause you to reflect and then attempt to chase back the youthful past, forever slipping through your fingers as you slink toward middle age and discover an entire generation exists…
Old Haunt
We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Once, it was quite important to me to talk about myself as a woman tossed about and striving for calmer seas or even better, dry land. I suppose we all identify…
West Lands
When I sit down to write fictional stories, the setting is always the same, and the setting is way out west in California. I don't know other places well enough, and even if I grow to, which I might now that I live in the Midwest, my bones quite literally grew to their capacity in…
Mother Shower
I had a dream the other night about a brand-new mother in some nebulous ancient culture being showered with immense love, affection, celebration, and tender care. Flowered garlands and feet massaged in oil abounded. Certainly, attention was also paid to the small child, but much of the community in this dream was tending to the…
And I Will Tell About It
What do we share when we stop hiding ourselves away? This is, of course, the internet, social media, the shame over guilt culture of appearance and perfection, and in these realms we skirt the truth, muddy it up, maybe forgo it all together. What happens when we decide, I'm going to share it? We're free.…
Sacred
The little baby boy still growing strong in my belly is due to greet the world in exactly eleven days. He's kicking me in the ribs as we speak. He might come tonight. Or next weekend. Or in two weeks. (I'm predicting June 8th.) I conceived this child in the middle of September 2017, found…
Eighteen
fiction short The other girls are smarter. Did you hear that one go on and on about Prufrock? You didn't get any of that from reading the poem. (You set it down every other line to take a hit, yes, but you still read it, and you still turned in a fine essay. The professor…
How to move to a new city, get pregnant, get married, and not take Valium
Imagine you meet a man (or woman) who you know you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with, (and how do you know this? Well, you don't entirely, but you just sort of feel it, you know you can tell this person the truth and look ugly in front of him and even…
Continue reading ➞ How to move to a new city, get pregnant, get married, and not take Valium
The Relief of Vulnerability
Note: As I share this I realize there are multiple layers to the vulnerability I am speaking about, and here are two - the actual act of being vulnerable with my husband that you are to read about read below, and the vulnerability of writing it down and sharing it on my blog and social…
A Full Life 