I don’t know when exactly it happened, but somewhere in the course of my 34 years, I accepted the idea that most of my clothes would be uncomfortable. These days, I have a closet full of five-inch stilettos, nipped-waist pencil skirts and close-cut clothing in rough, hard-finish fabrics. And most of the time I’m completely fine with […]
Tag: women
The Body Electric: Day Seven
You would think it would be easy by now — that seeing my own magic would feel as natural as breathing. But there are still days when it’s work… Days when I look at the mirror and see myself fading, and believe the lie that this makes me less: Less valuable. Less powerful. Less human. On those days, I turn […]
The Body Electric: Day One
Yesterday. Early evening. I slip into my running shoes and sit down on the kitchen floor by the back door, in front of the rainsplashed full-length mirror. Slowly, I slide into a stretch, feeling all the little muscles in my legs resisting until, after a minute or so, they loosen all at once. Whatever was […]
One for the renegades …
I still remember where I was the first time I heard the radio hit Renegades by X Ambassadors: on the dusty second story of a Staunton antinque mall, where the tune crackled and snarled through an AM/FM radio with a bad connection. No more than 30 seconds elapsed before I Shazamed it… I was smitten. * […]
be still …
Noon. I curl up on the down-filled sofa under the big bay window. Watch the light flickering down through the limbs of the old oak: There is nothing I must puzzle out here: no meaning to decode. No sign or symbol to deconstruct. There’s just me, with the sun warm on my skin. And the sun […]
When I am running in the dark, in a river of light …
Two days ago, for the first time in a long time, I ran. * There’s a little event held every Tuesday in Roanoke called the Pub Run. It begins at Wasena City Tap Room and loops through the greenway in either a three-mile or five-mile course. It felt strange, and also comforting, to run in such a […]
I am going to tell you a secret now …
At least once a week, some kind, well-meaning person asks me when I am going to write a book. And inside, where you can’t see it, I flinch. Now, the Current Me, the one you can see standing in front of you — she doesn’t flinch. She stands there with her smooth face and her smile, […]
When it’s Fall and it’s cold & wet but I’m brave & hopeful anyway …
Rain falls.The trees flame. Morning. * I step into the car and find it coated with wet leaves, the brown foliage glued to grill & windshield and hood. I start the engine, and a flock of small black birds shudders upward. Lifts through gray light. * On the road I am driving fast now. Water hisses in the […]
This is me, before I wore my body like a ball & chain … {on innocence lost … & joy reclaimed}
The other day, while rummaging around in an old box of photos, I stumbled over this snapshot from the 1990s, and I just couldn’t look away: For two days now I’ve been going back to it, trying to puzzle what it is about the image that haunts me so. And then today, it struck me: […]
on shadow & light, sunshine & silhouettes … & seeing my own magic
This evening.
I am walking the dog at sunset, stopped at a street corner, waiting for traffic to pass. I am lost in thought.
Suddenly a car flashes by, and for the briefest moment I glimpse …
ASHLEY WILSON FELLERS 