Posts by Ann Bodle Nash

Divorce Pending

The day I heard he was leaving I was shocked. My eldest daughter’s husband of fifteen years, a forty-eight-year-old who sports a reddish beard and a ball cap, and a shiny pickup truck. Father to their only child. I had encouraged the purchase of the truck, supporting this man’s dream, when my daughter had demurred. It turned out the truck was useful.

Continue reading… "Divorce Pending"

Love Refugees

The two men could not have been more different. One kept a picture of Jesus over his bed, the other a framed photograph of a naked woman in his living room. Both lived in cheap quarters along South Tacoma Way, in the years C-130s routinely flew low on their approach to the McCord Air Base. Vietnam was winding down. Noise from the planes rattled windows and caused conversations at the law school, where they were both

Continue reading… "Love Refugees"

Film is the Cure

It was nearly 25 years ago he first asked me, over a burger and fries in a local tavern on my lunch break, whether I had ever thought about having a thing with him. Caught off-guard, I reply too honestly, “Yeah but the Valley is way too small,” and I change the topic. As if the question was never on the table. I look away, but the thought registers. I think about my husband.

Continue reading… "Film is the Cure"

Dakar, Senegal

nside the white mini bus. Twelve seats, all facing Dakar’s cacophony of human wanderings, roadside. Lemons, oranges, bananas. Cloth dolls and fabric passport-purses balanced in flat baskets on heads of moving women swathed in vibrant prints. Upholstered sofas wrapped in plastic for outside sales. Pens of goats awaiting slaughter—Mrs. Camara’s dinner. Fathers, mothers,

Continue reading… "Dakar, Senegal"

My Montana

I am in the midst of a love affair with Montana. I didn’t see it coming, as so often is the case with middle-agers. We drift into these close-to-the-heart relationships and, somewhere along the way, knee deep in delight and longing, we consider radical thoughts

Continue reading… "My Montana"