Claire Carey Deering believes less is more, in writing and in life. She’s not too fond of makeup (much to her mother’s chagrin) or clutter, but can’t get enough of clean sentences that cut to the heart and interesting people that others overlook. She spends her days dreaming up characters, writing YA and memoir, and enjoying the grace of a second chance. Claire currently lives in Seattle, but feels most at home wherever her husband and son happen to be.
We’ve recently moved to the desert, a rocky land punctuated by jumping cholla and pink skies with air dry enough to crack your lips and warm enough that even now in early March I rarely wear more than a thin sweater, and, then, only when it is early morning or after that bright sun has…
My son has a yellow plastic clock that I bought in a futile attempt to ready him for kindergarten. It has a face with big numbers and hands but no mechanism—you must use your fingers to mark the time, and once you do, you are already late. A second has passed. Now, two. A storyteller…
The neighbor to our west has spent the better part of the afternoon stringing lights along his roof line. As the darkness has settled, I can see the strands glowing from our dining room window. The outline of their gray farmhouse twinkling through the fog. We do not know these neighbors well, and yet tonight…
My son has a growing collection of twigs and rocks and dead flowers littering our home. I stepped on a crow feather this morning on my way to the coffee maker and I am writing this while looking at a piece of tree bark he tearfully told me he could not live without. He is…
I can hear it from our bedroom, that low heavy rumble of a train on its tracks. There is a faint whistle, but we are many streets up and there are rows of trees and a river between us, soaking up its sound. Often only the heaviness of movement is what I can hear, a…
When the rain is falling and the wind is stirring up the remnants of leaves across my window, I can hear it. For a moment. The hoarse whisper of nature, echoing her Maker’s lips. And then it is gone; or, rather, I am gone. The car on my bumper. The items on my list. The…
When my boy was born, I could not nurse him. No matter how much Mother’s Milk tea I drank or lactation consultants I visited, I was bone dry. The fancy pump? It could not extract what my body refused to produce. I felt on par with Lady Macbeth’s maternal capabilities every time I went to…
In tiny waves of light the morning came. I stood above my son, watching him sleep. Outside the ash fell and the birds were quiet, but, inside, the house was full of his breath. I wonder if this is how all mothers will feel on the day the world ends. The wildfires are still burning…
There is a field behind our new house, with an invisible stream buried under all that tall grass. I know–from a map–that this little swath of hidden blue becomes the Lacamas River, just east of where I can see. In the morning, I watch the cows, gathered in circles, gossiping in voices that sound like…
From the freeway, the empty wagon bows straddling the Oregon Trail museum look like the giant ribcage of a prehistoric whale left out in the sun. Inside the museum, we join school children as they watch a documentary in which dramatic voiceovers of settlers talk about their run-ins with the “Red Man.” A few minutes…
We’ve just returned from Hawaii, specifically Ko Olina, a stretch of land named for joy. Literally: the fulfillment of joy. I’m not great at joy. Empathy? Yes, pretty solid. Introspection? To a fault. Raucous, made-you-look-joy? Well, let’s just say it isn’t my default. We’ve recently moved 143 miles from Seattle to Vancouver, and I’m in…
As I left work in the afternoon, I felt my contact lens bunch up into the corner of my eye. I blinked a few times, contemplated getting off the freeway to fix it, and then decided it wasn’t that bad. By the time I was on the 520 bridge, both eyes were watering. I squeezed…
We begin and end our days in darkness right now. Seattle is in full-blown winter mode, and so am I—hunkered down and hibernating in this long season. Just getting myself and my three-year-old dressed and out the door in time for work and preschool feels daunting. To top it off, he is especially clingy right…
On Friday, I woke up early, put on my jeans, a long-sleeve shirt, my wool jacket, and a pair of thick-soled tennis shoes before grabbing Dan’s ski gloves from the closet. The campus-wide invitation said to bring a pair, and, if there is one thing I’m good at, it is planning ahead to avoid pain.…
I smelled her before I saw her. A floral-fruity sweetness clouding the crisp morning. I looked up in time to see her path cross mine. Just long enough to see her finger the hem of her silk dress–a frock that belonged in a Free People catalog, not on an actual body in 48-degree weather. A…
Kindred 