narrating

Today's little stories.

1.
As he read the Turgenev passage that dripped with sentimentality, my Russian literature professor drew his upper lip inward, laughing, and I remembered my father; my father and his mocking face when you gave him a compliment.

2.
In the Peabody building driveway, a woman in a white Honda was attempting a very poorly executed turn. She had wedged herself between a stone wall and another car and her bumper had already scraped the top of the wall. There was a panting border collie in the front seat, looking as nervous as his owner probably was. I looked in at the woman and involuntarily raised my eyebrows. I jumped up on the wall to get around her and into the grass, still damp from the arrival of morning. I was wearing my Hunter boots and immediately wished I was walking around my farm instead of my ever-shrinking campus.

3.
I finished writing my paper about the implicit prejudice in Time magazine's coverage of the Fort Hood shooting earlier than expected. The sun had finally broken through the watery gray clouds. I cleaned up the kitchen, wiping down all of the counters and scrubbing the pile of pots and pans, inwardly delighted. I remembered my mother's subtly reinforced value of the unity between a tidy kitchen and a peaceful heart. It felt true at that moment.