Lisa Geichman Prosek

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

My mother and I disagreed about everything. Religion. Politics. Women’s roles. Parenting. Fashion. Even cornbread. We spoke on the phone barely once a month and saw each other even more infrequently. Holidays, that was about it. Somehow, we stiffened our spines and got through them. Still, on July 3, 2008, when Dad told me Mom […]

His name was Steve. He was a high school student, handsome, muscular, and tan. Dreamboat. The brother of a friend, and I’d had a crush on him for a long time. All the other ten-year-old girls were looking at him, giggling, and flirting. All I could see were my feet holding tight to the side […]