Let’s be friends.
Hey I’m Ericka!
I’m an indie author and publisher who loves to write and share my heart on this blog. Sign up below to receive my Friday newsletter in your inbox, and I’ll send you a free copy of my book,
Between You and Me.
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I pray nobody knows.
This is my third attempt. I first started with a podcast. It’s good for SEO. Maybe people would like the sound of my voice and hypontically end up on my site, books in their checkout basket before knowing what hit them. Or maybe I’d try YouTube. Throw on a little concelear so all the years […]
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This crazy thing called life.
One year, we moved. We seemed to do this for several years, somewhat sporadically. We weren’t nomads or degenerates on the run. My dad just kept getting promoted or changing jobs, and we’d find ourselves in Texas, and then Massachusetts, and then Texas, and then Massachusetts again. We somehow managed to forget other states existed. […]
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How much we don’t deserve.
He looks good for 105. Okay, he’s technically just fifteen, but for a dog, he should be dragging at least one hind leg around and losing teeth in his breakfast. Instead, Rocco reminds me of one of those old men you see walking in a jogging suit around the mall while his wife phones it […]
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The bad news fridge.
At the gym today, I realized that most people have to succumb to the merciless grips of either Fox News or CNN to receive their bad news. Fortunately, growing up, I had my mother. My mother was what one would call a curator of a very dismal museum. Instead of bright floral patterns or even […]
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And I didn’t even kill anyone.
Working with my father was the best and worst thing I ever did. Best because it was with my father. Worst because I almost died. The first time, we worked on an all-girls school in Massachusetts. It was exactly like you’d imagine an all-girls school in Massachusetts to be. I remember it was made of […]
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The blood God pulsed in our veins.
We’re children, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we learn to dance, more specifically, the polka. Why the polka? It’s not really a question we ask because we all very well know we go to a Polish Catholic school and the question is somewhat akin to “Why breathe?” Marcie’s grandparents teach us how. […]
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Upon the hot earth.
In all the world,There was only one man Like Jonah,Who knew Your voice so well,He came to ignore it,And even in the belly of that Great big fish—Three days, rotting and stinkingin the acidic waters,Crying out to the LordWho wanted only to giveth,While he longed only to take away—he emerged at the feet of a […]
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Guilt is a bird in my ribs.
If there’s a memory that I can feel the taste and smell of everything, it’s the day I did the splits and ended up in the emergency room. Not because of the splits but because of the lone piece of wood that popped up unabashedly from the floor to defend itself from me. Into my […]
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Every time my heart broke.
I never understood death until my dog died Christmas morning two years ago. I wasn’t a stranger to human death. My great-grandmother died when I was sixteen, and before that, my great-uncle. I had seen their bodies still, and I had seen their bodies in motion. But neither of them knew my heart. There’s a […]
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There goes the neighborhood.
My great-grandmother used to wash her hands up to her elbows. Which I guess was more like washing her arms. She was obsessive-compulsive, something that wasn’t diagnosed until much later in life when she was also diagnosed as manic-depressive and schizophrenic. I remember the smell of soap and old skin, washing away something I just […]
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Even on a good day.
My darkest fearand biggest regretare all the children I never thought to havebecause aren’t we to go out and multiply?But then I see the one that GodHas given me on a short, lifetime loan,An embodiment of all those childrenI never thought to have. Her sculptured skinAnd carefully carved heart, her moving lipsAnd wind-whipped hair, are […]
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Watered-down wine.
She looks at me through the same lens I once looked through to find my mother. But maybe that’s not at all accurate. After all, we’re now knee-deep into the twenty-first century. Who am I to her but an old relic who likes to whip out the macarena when waiting in line? She just loves […]
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