Darby Girl's Perspective

I have a favorite Christmas poem. It was written by Joyce Carol Oates and I have been pulling out the tattered copy that I originally cut from a women's magazine for many years. It went missing for a couple years around the time we moved in 2000 and then miraculously reappeared. I want to share it with you but I think I need the author's permission or perhaps I could just post it as long as I give the author credit and I wouldn't consider doing otherwise. Maybe she'll excuse me, considering that maybe you, the reader would be inclined to buy and read her other stuff. I would recommend you do that, she is an author worth reading, so here goes..... Season of Waiting Christmas: The house adrift in a wide white ocean of snow. Black December is a ditch winking overhead, but here beneath your parents' roof the piecrust faces are dimpled by forks and the clock faces are round and smooth as buttons. This is the season of waiting and of expectation and of hunger keenly rous...

I found four old wooden clothespins in a pile of junk at an auction a while ago. One red. One green. One blue. And one unpainted. The wood was smooth from years of use. For some reason they gave me a good feeling, so I stuck them in my pocket. When I got home I sat them on the windowledge in the kitchen where I have been looking at them for the past six months. I think I have them figured out. They remind me of the alley at Winthrop Drive where my mom and loads of other mom's hung their wet laundry while we kids rode our bicycles in the obstacle course created by crooked clothes poles and clean sheets. On quiet days when everyone had gone off to school and I was left to play alone, I'd gather up the clothespins, sort them by color and pretend that they were armies at war and sometimes families at war and other times good girls and bad girls. The bad girls were always red. When my mother needed more clothespins, I'd pretend one died, or went to school, which was a lot like d...

I make promises that I cannot keep. You wouldn't suspect. I am so reliable to my family and friends. But I do it nonetheless. I promise that I will quit smoking when I know it is a promise that I am not willing to keep. Maybe I should just promise to think about quitting. I do that all the time anyway. I promise to listen better but I am incapable and often have to ask my kids to repeat the story. This is not fair. A story is not half as good the second time around. They tell me many stories. Maybe I should ask them to tell me only one story a day. Maybe then I could listen better. I wonder what story they would choose. I promise Danielle that I will write a book. Danielle still asks every few months about "my book". I tell her it is fine. I write a little here and there. Sometimes I am impatient and ask " how I am supposed to write a book when no one has clean underwear and my commute to work takes several hours." Where is there room to write? They just nod the...