“Chalk Circles” is the author’s third collection of short stories.
This time, the theme explores personal growth, maturation, and the process of learning to make one’s own decisions about how to shape one’s life. Nothing in the world is quite as it seems, especially not as it is often presented to us or imposed upon us by others.
Even those closest to us can sometimes be not only our beacons, lifebuoys, or selfless sources of care, but also heavy anchors that moor us to the shore, or even drag us down with them, denying us the chance to live, to make mistakes, to learn, and to try again. Yet often the heaviest anchors lie within ourselves: the fear of being free, of being happy, and of admitting that the most important person in one’s life is oneself.
“Disappointment looks like a leash lying in the sand, I know that very clearly now. That leash is still there, and even many years later, after I have grown up and taken in a stray puppy and raised it into a large dog, every time I go for a walk and touch its leash, my mother’s disappointment and my own guilt flow back into me. They mingle, filling and tightening the leash, and the hand that holds it.”
The book contains the following stories:
Lucretia Learns to Swim
A Preference for Single People
Waiting for the White Horse
The Smell of the Earth
Ball
The Tale of Paul and the City
Requiem for the Bermuda Triangle
Božena’s Last Word
A Palm Before the Eyes
The Best Year Ever
Morning, Dark Gray
The Thanksgiving Tree
Asphalt
Chalk Circles
The book was published with the support of the State Cultural Capital Foundation.