Author Archives: janishaag

for RDS On the same day I’m given a dummy typewriter—tin, hollow inside, perhaps a movie prop—from a long-ago student who has neverforgotten my affection for old-fashionedtyping machines, you and I head for the fancy computer storenamed for a fruit … Continue reading →

This lust hits me every year about this time,as the temperature soars toward the centurymark, as kids unwrap from school and taketo their bikes to freewheel their way whereverthey want to go. Though I don’t recall asking for a pink … Continue reading →

The path that is new to youis familiar to others, clearly worn by feetwalking it minutes, days, decades,centuries before you. You know this, of course, but walkingwith a friend — who used to regularly treadthis path with her beloved — … Continue reading →

I want to be fully here. Tonight I will sleepbetween two streams of water, under stars that movefrom what I don’t know to what I don’t know. —Pat Schneider from “If I Were God” in “The Patience of Ordinary Things” … Continue reading →

for Lauren and Gerald, now joined by Henry He should have arrived witha list clutched in his tiny fist,an instruction manual for thisnew human, specifically tailoredfor his particular self. But no. They don’t send themwith one. I don’t know why.Like … Continue reading →

First, you can’t.You can try. But you can’t. They have to want to return,and if they have lost the gleam in the eye,the impetus to continue, the breath,you have to know that all the urging,the pleading, the desperationwill not help. … Continue reading →

I say to Poki, when she beginsto eat again after a week of languishing,when I wondered daily if she wason her way out, watching, because if she wastruly dying, she didn’t seem to bein pain—just wanted to sleep,tolerated occasional gentle … Continue reading →

June 23, the anniversary of the day in 1868 when a patent was granted for the first practical typewriter to a trio of inventors, including Christopher Latham Sholes, a Wisconsin newspaper editor who designed the QWERTY keyboard. ••• Around here … Continue reading →

She’s visible on the longest day,Venus a bright white jewelwinking in summer-blue sky, a pearl earring that requiresus to squint in a what-is-that?daytime moment. And once the sun reluctantlysteps offstage, that show-offVenus really beams in the spotlight, obscuringtiny Mars shining … Continue reading →

when it’s so un-summery, a mild85 degrees at most, with a soft breeze,the sky still blue, no smoke or smogdarkening it, the thermometer kindlyhovering far below the century mark. In fact, we’ve not yet seen 100 degrees,something I shouldn’t even … Continue reading →