Kristine E. Brickey

These days have razor sharpened my emotions. My eyes fill too quickly with tears. Anger spikes without warning. The simplest things become mountains. Yesterday, I sat in the parking lot of my new chiropractor and cried as I left a message. Today, frustrated tears rolled freely when the vet didn't answer my call. "I JUST NEED TO KNOW WHEN YOU'RE ARRIVING!" I yelled to nobody, dislodging birds from the trees. I'd just finished a calming yoga routine on my front porch. So much for that hour. These days are almost too much. Nerves are stretched thin and raw, ready to snap. It would be almost too much if it was all there was to maneuver; but, add in a decade of grief, new brotherly loss; combine the removal of physical and mental release from CrossFit, massage therapy, and regular chiropractic care; together, they are escalating my emotional fragility. I know I am not the only one feeling these feelings. I know it is important for others to understand that they a...

            Her mother has been calling for her. The first minutes, her voice is thrown into the warm summer morning, a simple thing. Now, much later, anyone who picks up on the sound would hear the irritation as her daughter’s first and middle name ring across the green grass and dirt road, disappearing into the breeze.   The little girl doesn’t even notice. She is lost in her own space and time, beneath the rough branches of the small crabapple orchard on the far side of the driveway. Her mother will call all day, but the girl won’t answer.  See, how her eight year old frame lies across her pony’s? The little Shetland is completely at ease, his soft white muzzle down in the grass as he grazes, occasionally crunching a fallen apple, still too green and hard and sour for most tastes. He doesn’t mind the girl, draped across his back like a saddle pad. They are lost in the warmth of love only understandable by girls and their ponies. Lying on...

My hawk came home today. It's been months since I saw him, since I'd seen any, really. I've been missing my hawks, signs that Robbie is checking in with me. Some people might think that it's crazy, but since my brother died on February 5th, I haven't seen a hawk. Not in my yard. Not in trees along the sides of the highways. Nowhere. May is hard. The hardest, if there is one, of all the months. It's more of a roller coaster, super wonderful days to remember, mixed with the worst of my life. So, it's harder. This year, this stupid, sucky, should have been the coolest year (what with 2020 and all it held in anticipation), has instead brought a decade marker of Robbie's death, the death of my only brother, the Corona 19 virus and isolation, and because this wasn't all enough, murder hornets. Seriously? Murder hornets? Yup. And, no hawks in sight. It might seem crazy with everything else, but no hawks made it all even harder to handle. Where was m...