jumpers in a plaid agitation

"Jumpers in a Plaid Agitation," December 13, 2022 (#347)

title from “St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell (2006)

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (2016)

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (1987)

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk MD (2014)

Jumpers in a Plaid Agitation

Slow to anger, rational, and still the strongest and bravest,

my grandmother one winter morning eschewed awakening

to the women’s quarters. She crawled into her bed and closed

the middle. The blow landed among the folds of her coat with

the woman and the children he had once had, and the thought

had not been before us. So she needed no explanation for the

rattling noise and marring the shape of the fufu. So it was worse

hanging by the neck. It was a relief to go to Latin class, where

a famous poet, knowing full well that he was neither husband,

led me down to the shore with such solicitude, as if I were

a characteristic pattern, distinct from the others. For example.

from here

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8-14-17 of May 1967