The Unbearable Lightness of Marriage
Sometimes I wake up in the morning, after battling the rough night demons,
the detritus of their dark messages like sharp crumbs in my bed. My pillows
are pummeled by the weight of the world. And I hear my husband giggling like
a hyena downstairs, listening to the silly banter of the morning newscasters.
They treat us like babies while biting on their new macarons. It makes me want
to grab a rolling pin and pound him on the head, like Blondie pounded
Dagwood, until it looks like I’ve just assembled a cherry pie, if you know what
I mean. (Just kidding.)
Leanne Grabel, M.Ed., is a writer, illustrator, performer & retired special education teacher. Currently, Grabel is teaching graphic flash memoir to adults in arts centers and retirement communities throughout the Pacific Northwest. In love with mixing genres, Grabel has written & produced numerous spoken-word multi-media shows, including “The Lighter Side of Chronic Depression”; and “Anger: The Musical.” Her poetry books include Lonesome & Very Quarrelsome Heroes; Short Poems by a Short Person; Badgirls (a collection of flash non-fiction & a theater piece); & Gold Shoes, a collection of graphic prose poems. Grabel has just completed Tainted Illustrated, an illustrated stretched memoir, which was serialized in THE OPIATE from 2018-2020; and HUSBAND, a collection of graphic flash memoir. Grabel’s illustrated flash memoir will be published monthly in Another Chicago Magazine in 2020. She and her husband Steve Sander are the founders of Café Lena, Portland’s legendary poetry hub of the 90s. Grabel is the 2020 recipient of the Bread and Roses Award for longtime contributions to women’s literature in the Pacific Northwest.