Jane_R's profile

The nurse left work at five o’clock. Exactly. Did she care that my father was wheezing? No. Did she wait for me to tell her it was OK to leave? Of course not. She thinks that the most important thing is her little life. She has no idea, none. It probably doesn’t occur to her even to wonder. The paintings on the wall, the books all around—she could care less. She only pays attention to Father’s body, his illness. This woman has the nerve to ask for a half hour every day...

Unintended Consequences I didn’t intend to become a writer or an artist. I didn’t intend to grab at an early retirement offer and leave teaching, a job that I loved. I certainly didn’t intend to find out about childhood incest. These days I spend my mornings writing poetry, memoir, or fiction, or painting abstract canvases. Those days, I got up hurriedly, checked my to-do lists, grabbed my briefbag already loaded with student papers and lecture notes, and headed off to the ...

Dear Ms. Einstein, It begins with an unsolicited memory: I am three years old and it hurts to pee. Now a middle-aged scientist, I am incredulous. My family may have been eccentric but it was loving, surely not supportive of sexual abuse. But, as cracks in a levee precede a flood, the memories keep coming. My father’s affairs, his self-indulgence, his temper. My mother’s passivity. The signs are plain. A succession of body memories sends me into a fog of dissociation. In an eerie e...

It begins with an unsolicited memory: I am three years old and it hurts to pee. As a middle-aged scientist, I am incredulous. My family may have been eccentric but it was loving, surely not supportive of sexual abuse. But, as cracks in a levee precede a flood, the memories keep coming. My father’s affairs, his self-indulgence, his temper. My mother’s passivity. The signs are plain. A succession of body memories sends me into a fog of dissociation. In an eerie echo of the abuse, an anonymous h...

It begins with an unsolicited memory: I am three years old and it hurts to pee. As a middle-aged scientist, I am incredulous. My family may have been eccentric but it was loving, surely not supportive of sexual abuse. But, as cracks in a levee precede a flood, the memories keep coming. My father’s affairs, his self-indulgence, his temper. My mother’s passivity. The signs are plain. A succession of body memories sends me into a fog of dissociation. In an eerie echo of the abuse, an anonymous h...