A writing life in progress
"You know, that's one of the craziest, hardest parts about being a mom," I said. "We make these sweet, beautiful, helpless, perfect little people. And then, almost immediately, we start wanting two things at once. Two things that can't possibly both happen.…
It's the first day of spring. I woke too early this morning because we haven’t yet begun pulling the shades shut in our bedroom. We’re still calibrated to darkness. But the sun came, reflecting off the bright building across the street. I woke with an ache in my…
Somehow she's four years old. She wants her hair long and curly. She prefers dresses to anything else. She likes to sniff my neck and say, "Mom, you smell like roses!" Even when that can't be true. Because we're both sweaty and covered in chalk from the climbing…
On Sundays when I don't climb, I read. It's the least I can do for my mind. To sit outside a café, turn my face to the sun, and turn my mind to the epiphanies of others. Today I selected a volume of essays because essayism continues to be my…
Yesterday, we lost an hour. Which reminded me that I've lost far more time than that in the last year and a half. Life has been good, if fast and absolutely full. Since my last post, I've traded a dream job (teaching American and British literature at the University of…
Carrots and celery are chopped and piled high in blue stone bowls. Onion grows clear and fragrant over chicken breasts in the slow cooker. I slice a small brick of yellow butter into a red mixing bowl. Each slice lands deep in the white mound of flour, baking powder, and…
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings--nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; --If, Rudyard Kipling I am a candidate for Chair and Vice Chair of…
On the walk to barnehage this morning, I met a fellow mom in drop-off mode. Like many of my neighbors, she wears her headscarf under her parka; her daughters toddle beside her in matching pink snowsuits. I've seen this mom many times before and, because I'm me, I always smile…