Author Archives: Jaclynn Loibl

You will not catch me jamming my bare tootsies into the dark bowels of a tennis shoe or boot. Not in this humid countryside. This place is a menagerie—a loving bosom of invitation for frogs, crickets, spiders, and whatever else wants a ride. Just the other day, I flipped the porch rug and found threeContinue reading “Getting Buggy With It”

I hate how uncomfortable my chest feels—like tambourines crashing, like rubber bands stretched and snapped in my underbelly. I pretend to grab handfuls of it and hurl it into the yard, across the country road, into the cow-filled pasture. Eff you, I want to say. Be rid of me. It feels like an infestation. AContinue reading “Swallowed, Then Surfacing”

I’m a fan of Evelyn’s imagination. The metallic ball-and-stick set used to build pyramids transforms into rooms, playgrounds, and ships for a battling world. Three-inch toy dinosaurs—orange, yellow, and green—inhabit this miniature landscape. Marbles and extra magnet sticks become food, while an empty paper towel roll and a rubber bracelet make occasional cameos. But oh,Continue reading “The Weight of Being Heard”

When setting up a fish tank, you have to cycle it. I’m not sure if that’s the exact term, but the idea is to give it time—monitoring the balance of phosphates or nitrates—so when the fish are finally plunked in, the environment supports their long-term health and happiness. When Dave started the tank in ourContinue reading “How Does Your Garden Grow?”

At the left side of our property, as you curve around the drive, large limbs—each the size of three people laid head-to-toe—rest low to the ground like sleeping giants. One fell in a storm; two came down with the pole saw. They’ll clutter quickly if we’re not diligent. I’m prioritizing those branches. They’ve got toContinue reading “Where the Branches Lie”

A tan sedan backs out onto Rollingbrook Drive. The evening soundscape: the ting of a ping pong ball thudding the table before super-bouncing across the garage cement, the click-clack of the keys of my lap, the distant echo of a firework a few neighborhoods over. And cicadas—those alarming insect assholes I somehow forgot about. IContinue reading “Wishing, Hoping, Waiting”

Reading Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood stretches me as a writer. The nonfiction details—the facial scar that distorts a killer’s face like a mosaic mirror—shake me out of my comfort zone. The freedom to write exactly as one sees it, in a way that evokes images as sharply as bleu cheese tastes, is a fantasyContinue reading “Permission To Be Messy”

I got invited to a birthday party! This fruit of my labor is crisp and sweet—especially since there was no guarantee such an invite would ever come. You see, I want to belong. And when we moved to Georgia, it was important to me that, in addition to family, I’d develop my own friendships—ones thatContinue reading “I’ll Get You, My Pretty!”

Night off. See you tomorrow! Love, Jaclynn