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.

By 7 a.m. a year ago today I’d already been to two grocery stores buying the perfect turkey and other Thanksgiving fixings and had the turkey in the oven cooking two days early because I was afraid my little toy poodle, Ebie, would die without having his favorite food one last time. I’ve wanted to […]

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 […]

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 […]

Writing is tough. Who would disagree with that? But, for me, the least of the difficulty occurs when I’m at the keyboard putting one word after another. And that process can be so difficult that my straight hair nearly curls because my brain’s pushing so hard. What’s even more difficult is getting my butt, brain, […]

By the time I held newborn Carter in my arms, it was all over. He’d won my heart. But getting there was quite a journey. All I could think about when I saw the photo of my daughter and son-in-law holding a positive pregnancy test was how I was going to look sitting in a […]

Sky walks around the office scratching on walls. Then I have to rescue him from the bathroom when he pounds the door closed, gets trapped in the dark, and starts howling. I open the door, and Sky’s bright blue eyes thank me. As soon as I sit down to start working again, Sky paws through […]

One time when I was a little girl, I asked Dad how fires spread from one tree to another. He described the process during a twenty-minute orientation about physical and chemical properties. Dad’s a chemist, and he knows about these things. I’d posed the question on our weekly trip to the doctor’s office to get […]

Money’s tight these days, but I needed some summer footwear. So, when I heard about $2.50 shoes for sale at a widely known specialty-clothing store, I had to pick up a pair. Now, every morning I slide my feet into the plain rubbery black flip-flops. The distinct sound they make as I walk around the […]

It starts first thing in the morning, even before the sun wakes. I wish I could adequately convey how it sounds. As I write, I imagine that it’s a mix between a trumpet’s blare and a baby’s coo. It’s my cat, Bud, making his special cry for milk. He cries so hard and so long […]