Mostly mushrooms
In Folly, protagonist Rae Newborn works her way out of debilitating depression by building a house. Artisan of wood in her former life, she pieces together her redemption on a solitary island in the Pacific northwest.
Rae is not only the scarred creation of her writer. She is the writer’s scars, revealed as socially useful things.
True Story
Mama hadn’t been gone too long when my Dad ended up in rehab. I was in rehab too at the time, where an equanimity of spirit and growing roundness to my form could only mean on thing: I was pregnant.
It happens sometimes, you know, when life’s unredeemed losses pull you down into paths of least resistance? Humans cope by the means available. So there I was, impregnated by a familiar friend I’d relied on in many a tough situation, but never to this degree.
Look
Asleep in the trees, I feel my fingers itch from palm to tip, but dream swelled eyes resist the open air. I hold the netherworlds and blindly smile and scratch, until I stop: the itch remains.
Sleep undone, I spring the lids and there she is, madonna moon, a silver shimmering sheen. Hanging baskets join the boughs to rock this pearl, this tiny apparition.