Sara Ryan

So Father’s Day, for me, is a day to think about how much I miss my dad.
I have lots of days like that, only rarely underscored by national celebrations, and on those days, I often read Dad’s writing. Sometimes, like today, I choose to share it with the Internet.
Here he is at 27, fourteen years [...]

I’m in the Usual Undisclosed Location for a week. Time here always provides experiences that I am unlikely to have in Portland; for instance, going to church with my mom. Red, white and blue decorations, “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and a choral anthem on the theme of healing the broken land, which segued into [...]

You can’t predict them, because then they wouldn’t be ambushes. You can’t say, “Come on now, I’m on my damn lunch break, crying is just not on.” You can’t plan for them. You can’t make a note on your Outlook calendar and block out some time. You think, “For God’s sake, Dad wouldn’t want me [...]

Near the end of a phenomenal Mountain Goats show. Amazing energy, the barn has been in flames all night, and even though I want to punch the drunk screamers just as much as usual, I’m still so glad I’m here. John launches into the song, people are pogoing around the floor, nodding their heads  [...]

They’re playing Bonnie Raitt, not Iron and Wine. The guy at the next table is reading the Bible, not the alt-weekly. But they’ve got soy lattes and free wifi, so here I am. On the way to the coffeehouse, I heard “Blitzkreig Bop” on the radio, repurposed as an Ohio State fight song. O! H! [...]

“…the success of a public library is difficult to measure – circulation statistics and the like tell only part of the story. Such matters are analogous to that part of the iceberg above the surface. The real meaning of the library to its citizens is hidden like the under-water section of the iceberg, and while [...]

I was looking over my last several months’ worth of entries, and found myself more struck by what I wasn’t saying than what I was.
I have a lot of what Garret recently called “breathless blogging type entries” and far fewer longer, more thoughtful posts. Most notably, I’ve never talked about one of the defining facts [...]

I just reread Richard Russo’s Mohawk. Russo is one of my favorite writers, and his usual small-town subject matter fits where I am right now, this blue-collar town, struggling to redefine itself after the collapse of most of the local industry. I’ve never lived here, this place where my parents were born and where they [...]

I quote myself: “As the child of two librarians, one of whom worked in rare books and special collections, I don’t have family stuff so much as a museum and archive.”
So when I’m at my parents’ house, I dig around. This time I found some scrapbooks. Steve wrote about the contents of one of them [...]

I’m still thinking about place.
Where I am now, the overwhelming majority of businesses are national chains. Their existence is described approvingly with definite and indefinite articles, e.g.: “We got a Target,” “The Wal-mart has the cheapest coffee filters.” To urbanite me, these businesses are uniformly bleak and depressing. There’s nothing unique, nothing local, nothing to [...]