There was an oak tree just outside the back window. Brown leaves clung to it through the winter, unwilling to sever their ties until they were forced out by new growth. Some nights, when I was tired of waiting and had a little too much to drink, I would slip out in the dark and throw my empties at it. My mother did the same thing – tossed cheap wine glasses against rustic mantles, flung half-full bottles of Sangre de Toro against cracked linoleum. Broken glass every time. Me? I lobbed 7-ounce Budweiser bottles here, old jelly-jars-turned-cocktail glasses there. Every single one landed with an unsatisfying thud in the frosted grass or clinked against mildewed siding.

One night, frustrated, I drained a 12-ouncer and went outside. Two feet from the oak, I held on to the bottle as if it were a diminutive baseball bat, gripped its neck with my fingers, and slammed the tree with as much force as a slightly drunk sixteen-year-old girl could.



It’s harder to break a bottle than you think.

From a writing prompt last summer: Out the window. NaNoWriMo is beginning to drive me crazy. Sixteen days. 41,000 words. One messy and rambling novel very close to completion.

Bit of trivia: my mother now makes jewelry from pieces of broken glass she finds on the street or breaks on the cement slab in her own back yard, a picture of calm with a broom and dust pan.

Tags: The Little House, alcohol, anger, writing prompt, NaNoWriMo