During this holiday week, The Common is presenting highlights from the past year. Today’s highlights come from “Essays.”
James Boo takes us on a visit to the Park Slope Coop, while Deborah Thompson trades one piece of history for another in a thrift store.
Photo from Flickr Creative Commons
GEORGINA PARFITT
The teeth of the excavator are wet. The cage opens, hovers, and grips a mouthful—some floor, some outer wall, some window frame, the glass disappearing with a tiny, tinkling sound.
ANA HEBRA FLASTER
On that last normal afternoon in the barrio, I was where I always was after school, chasing skinny hens in my Abuela Cuca’s yard, the smell of hot rubber wafting from my grandfather’s stamping machine in the shed. I played at Abuela Cuca’s house every afternoon.
CATHARINA COENEN
Sometimes red currants at the farmer’s market glow like dashboard warning lights, the sugar in my shopping basket drags on my arm like lead, and sweetness, beauty, danger taste the same. Sometimes my eyes project the letters from a sign outside the Licht- und Luftbad in Essen, Germany.
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