feel the groove
We’ve been coming to Charleston since I was 6 or 8, I guess. From Maryland, Ohio, New York, Connecticut, and finally Clarksburg, we would visit my great-Aunts who lived on Quarrier Street. Emma smoked and cussed. Louise was very prim and proper. Both attended the Baptist Temple, a name for a church which I found [...]
Appayank. It’s not a word, but it’s who I am. Since my family moved back to West Virginia from the Northeast in 1983, I’ve felt the pull of both places. I’m starting to write about it – we’ll see how that goes. This first story might be why I dig hip-hop so much… I was [...]
My Grandmother’s cactus blooms in my mother’s yard now. It’s a prickly pear; paddle-shaped with lemon-colored flowers. On Arlington Court, the plants tell stories. Even the ones that are gone. There was a paw-paw tree by number 17 for years; from it I tasted paw-paw for the first time. It was like a custard with [...]
I was 16 when I jumped out of Greg Markia’s birthday cake in my mother’s old gold lame dress. The party was in the gray cinder-block volunteer fire department building in Ainsley, West Virginia. It may as well have been in hell. I’ve told this story to my husband and several friends – it’s true, [...]
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