Plain Catie

Unbeknownst to most of you, each year (read: the last two) instead of setting New Year's goals, I choose a yearly theme; something to guide me, to remind me of the ways I want to grow. In 2020, my theme was “Be intentional.” And despite many unintentional things about that year, I actually kept pretty well on theme. I took a few writing classes, allowing me to intentionally carve out space for creative writing even with the demands of grad school. It helped me remember who I am and want to be, showed me I can always have writing as a part of my life, and gave me a group of lovely new friends (hi ladies!). And after many months of debating, I finally made the decision to switch doctoral advisors, a terrifying but deliberate choice, setting my feet on a new path that I have been grateful for ever since.  But in the last few months of 2020, I noticed that, though my life was better, I was still carrying the hard shell I developed to survive those first three years of grad school (and ...

This weekend I buried my pet potato. Hairy Potater came to me as a gift from my brother-in-law, Parker, who, when scrambling to make me something for Christmas, asked my sister Abi what I wanted. Abi called me. "I don't know," I said, predictably indecisive. "I'd be happy with anything. I'd be happy with...a potato that looks like Harry Potter." Well. Happy Christmas, Hairy. I am sure that Park did not expect me to like the present, much less keep him. Much much less take him on field trips around Boston. Hairy visited me at school. He loved the Boston Public Library: "It's like magic." We even went to Harvard, which he kept pronouncing "Harvwarts." Hairy was my quarantine buddy. We went on walks together and sometimes he sat by my computer while I worked. We met squirrels and enjoyed a snowy, empty Boston. But alas, all things must go the way of the earth, most especially potatoes. My roommates kept asking when I was going to bur...

It has a 36% on Rotten Tomatoes. It stars Anne Hathaway sporting the least-believable northern English accent. My roommate who “loves terrible movies” won’t even watch it with me. But the first time my best friend Bronwen showed it to me, snuggled up in my parent’s basement in the marshy anxiety of post-college life, I felt something shift. And at least once a year, when life gets dark—I move across the country, my dear friend and roommate moves away, there’s a global pandemic—I find myself curled up in my bed, crying and laughing at this awful, predictable, brilliant narrative of the deep pain and joy of life. (Also, I would be lying if I said my aesthetic wasn't based on Anne Hathaway's character's curly bangs and Docs.) The movie, One Day , follows twenty-three years in the lives of best friends Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew, dropping in on them the same day every year—July 15 th —from their college graduation in 1988 to “present day” 2011. Romantic tension builds t...

Thinking about what I've learned living in Boston this year/grad school year 1, I've compiled the following list, which for me is about as raw and vulnerable as this year has been: 1. God can't drive a parked car. Move forward even if you don't know the way. (P.S. HE is the way.  John 14:6 ) 2. Ask for help. Ask for rides. Ask for friends. Ask for shoulders to cry on. People want to help, but you have to tell them what you need. 3. Be kind to people and talk well of everyone all the time. The relief of complaining in the moment is never worth the anguish of hurting that person or their reputation or compromising your character. If you feel the need to gossip about someone/process, talk to God first. 4. Always turn to God first with feelings, hurts, anguishes, excitements, gratitude. Treasure your relationship with Him. He will always be there to comfort and take care of you, even when no humans are. 5. God gives miracles often at the same time as disappointments o...

I'm calling poems I publish on here "flash poetry," for the double meaning that they may be briefly illuminating, and indecent exposure. Lecture Now, what I have here is a candle. Some of you may not be familiar with candles; let me explain: They are made of wax, they are wick within and burned, they are light and flame. What I have here is a candle; Now remember that the candle cannot see herself. She sees only the shadows she casts, her distorted form, she cannot tell that she sees because of her own light. She doesn’t know: she is the reason we see as we have never seen before. Now remember, what I have here is a candle. To the candle, the world is melting; Or rather, she is melting, while the world grows up around her. How true, she thinks, that I will only shrink forever. The candle does not understand, she has melted before, and will melt again. Here is a candle. She wants to hide her twisted body under a bu...

Dive To plunge the depth of my Divinity-- like when I dove on the reef, dove deep to see the life there, tumbled through pressure to the dancing bottom, waves breaking above, tempestuous, relentless, and I drew small tube breaths, took a black rock from ocean floor to sky, pumping arms and aching back and heavy tank and surface breaks-- I held the underside of that rock, flashing Mother of Pearl, in the sparkle sun, and was happy just to breathe.

Nothing Is As Certain As Death: like applesauce, both solid and liquid, an unlabeled jam jar, a bagpipe, deflated; an iris closed before dawn. Taxes: struggling to spell your own name, a broken power cord, a father's wheezing snore; when you wake up late on garbage day, and run to the curb in your bathrobe and slippers.