Lisa Geichman Prosek

I’m living this year in 1965, when we piled into our family sedan–the beige Dodge Coronet–and drove the 100-plus miles from our suburban home just south of Dayton to Portsmouth. Route 73’s hilly, winding path upset my stomach as usual, but I didn’t care. I chomped on the Doublemint gum Mom dispensed and focused on reaching my grandparents’ house at the end of the trip.

When I awoke on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I had no reason to feel anything other than unbridled hopefulness. My family was well, including my two toy poodles and five cats. Our daughter had begun her own life, having moved into a brand new apartment with a friend. Everything in our lives moved ahead, often […]

Perhaps I need to make a public declaration so that I can come fully back into the light of a literary life. Maybe I should finally openly admit that I haven’t written properly in a year. That, after my sister passed away in 2012, my writing died a slow death. Maybe it happened because there […]

I don’t experience the traditional kind of nightmares often, but when I do, they usually feel like whoppers. Someone chases me, or I miss a critical deadline, or I return to a hellish college math course, failing consistently. I wake up drenched in sweat, with my heart pounding. I let out a relieved sigh when […]

I don’t know about you, but performances by artistic gymnasts mesmerize me. I love to see them fly off the vault, soar from one uneven bar to another, and tumble with forceful assuredness in the floor exercise. What really gets me, though, is the balance beam. How does anybody stand on a four-inch piece of […]

My grandchildren knew me before they even realized it. When I held one-week-old Carter, I spoke to him quietly and caressed his soft little shoulder as it peeked out from the baby blue blanket. This new little boy, aware of almost nothing but his need for creature comforts, got a puzzled look on his face […]

The eulogy I gave for my sister, Beth Geichman Clemmer, on April 15, 2012: If you knew Beth and you’re like me, you think of her as quiet, reserved, maybe even kind of shy. She certainly was never one to want to draw attention to herself. So, it might surprise you to hear that her […]

During the last six months, I’ve been feeling more overwhelmed and unnerved by the blank page than usual. When I have written, I’ve spent much more time thinking about how the work fails than how it succeeds. I’ve found it far easier to totally avoid writing than to do it, even though writing stands as […]

On that day ten years ago, I looked up at the breathtakingly beautiful clear azure blue sky before I walked into my office building in Columbus, Ohio, and felt that everything was right. Things had started going well for me at work and with my family. For the first time in a long time, my […]

The smell of saddle leather thrilled me as Patches, my very own pony, stepped along the gravel road. Her brown and white head slowly bobbed up and down next to Pa’s as he led us around the block on which sat the little green house he shared with Nanny. Short for six years old, I […]