Isabel CoffeyDec 4, 20225 min readPerfection IncarnateIN GRAMMATICAL VERNACULAR, “PERFECT” MEANS “COMPLETE.” NOT “WITHOUT flaw, not “unimprovable.” When I teach the Perfect tense to my...
Isabel CoffeyAug 30, 20221 min readLate SummerAugusts are cruelest in the desert where swelter meets survival, raw and fervent and persistent, indomitable against cracked mud and...
Isabel CoffeyJun 29, 20225 min readRereading Newton after My Second Year of TeachingThe scientific nature of the ordinary man Is to go on out and do the best you can. -John Prine, "Humidity Built the Snowman" (1995)...
Isabel CoffeyApr 12, 20221 min readTEMPO[My] heart is restless until it rests in you. -Augustine Within my restless Heart, I bed you, Love. Without your relentless Spirit I...
Isabel CoffeyJan 10, 20212 min readThe Friday Before Finals12/11/2020 In this self-contained world we’ve created, I ebb and flow like a gill, stretching open to the environment of my submersion....
Isabel CoffeyJul 14, 20201 min readKitchen ChemistryI am not the caterpillar hiding to emerge from the cocoon as a butterfly, unrecognizable: mysterious transformation. I am the strawberry...
Isabel CoffeyJul 13, 20201 min readcereal box morning7:15: I could finish my homework or start a book or start getting dressed but I linger over scrambled eggs and two-parts cereal,...
Isabel CoffeyMay 29, 20208 min readMAKING IT HOMEMARCH 2020: It rained three days and three nights before I began my move from Valparaiso, Indiana to Phoenix, Arizona. And before that,...
Isabel CoffeyMay 19, 20201 min read4 minute bowl of soupI know the recipe so I know it takes longer to make, even to simmer, let alone chopping and adding vegetables, sprinkling spices and...
Isabel CoffeyMay 14, 20202 min readElegyJohn Prine, who for five decades wrote rich, plain-spoken songs that chronicled the struggles and stories of everyday working people and...
Isabel CoffeyMay 12, 20203 min readHome-Grown Science LessonDad is 6’ 3” and he has to lay, curved, to adjust the little telescope. He finds Venus with a marked reverence, then switches to a closer le
