Standing In The Shadows
A Narrative Self-Evaluation
My kids’ school years are ending and I found myself thinking about how I might improve my performance as a parent to students next year. But this isn’t exactly a report card, it’s more like notes to self: School. I’m pretty much in awe of my...Swirl
For lack of a better way to put this, Thursday afternoon, my household experienced a swirl. At one moment, too many things—some big, some smaller, some happy, some sad, and one totally unexpected—converged and roiled all at once. ** Oh, it was hot, as in a...June Brides
Here’s a question: is there such a thing as out-and-out happiness? Before giving my answer, I am going to describe one of the most lovely of wedding ceremonies I’ve been fortunate enough to attend (and doubly lucky me, participate in). C and C decided to...Second Fridays (We Don't Get Out Much)
I love how my town—many others have, too—has instituted an arts night. For us, it’s the second Friday each month and for me, personally, making it to openings or special events at our local museum (because how lucky am I to walk by the very wonderful...Remy and Nate
There’s a telltale sign we’ve got a launching reader in the house: by the beds and in the bathrooms and on the bookshelves by the couch in the dining room (you read that right, best spot for a couch, just off the kitchen) are slim volumes of Nate the Great...Near, Far, Music, Art, Food, & Cool Stuff
When people talk about what made Northampton kind of “pop” onto the map, one thing often mentioned is the Iron Horse Music Hall. Rightly so: this funky little space—even before it expanded to be a bigger, less funky space—has a certain...Anniversaries. Clear Skies.
I’m not the best holder of dates. So, certain anniversaries might pass me by (at least consciously). Specific dates aside, my psyche and body often seem to exhibit uncanny anniversary sensitivity. There was a period of time—a couple of years, not a short...Complex Narratives: In the Gulf, in DC, in Our Families
I know—certainly at the very least in my bluest of corners in the formerly true blue state of Massachusetts (pre-Scott Brown, that is)—I am not alone in feeling disappointed in Barack Obama’s response (Tuesday night, the past sixty days) to the BP...Put on a Show
I don’t know about where you live, but around here, these warm days become very social, sometimes purposefully and other times in more happenstance ways. Maybe New England’s four distinct seasons have something to do with it, as in we are warm now and can...Childhood BFF: Thing of the Past?
Although BFF has entered the lexicon, an article in last week’s New York Times let it be known that some educators and professionals working with children are questioning the overall merits of childhood best friends. In short, despite the benefits of closeness,...Summer. Here.
Summer is here all right. On the solstice, that big moon shone and the sky held its deepening grey-blue hue that last iota longer enough to have it sink in that the light had stretched itself like a really gorgeously long limb, the muscle giving long, light days its...Shooting Straight in the Dark
One thing I love about certain music: through it, I’m reminded that hope is really the best thing to have. Hope’s not always easy. Hope alone is not enough. But hope—also, love, faith, trust, a voice, and friends—is essential. Lose it and you...Scatterbrain
This is turning out to be a scattered sort of week, with two kids at home with nothing exactly to do (although this morning and tomorrow morning, Lucien is occupied—today spending an hour with a wonderful physical therapist to work on balance and...Other People's Babies
I had one moment, when I was initially passing down the most cherished (some through all four kids) infant clothing (the first last clothes) of experiencing a little pang. It sounded and felt like this: tiny pleading little bit sad voice inside my head asking no more...Open Adoption Roundtable #17
The Open Adoption Roundtable is a series of occasional writing prompts about open adoption. It’s designed to showcase of the diversity of thought and experience in the open adoption community. You don’t need to be part of the Open Adoption Bloggers list to...Remaining Days of Summer: A Wish List
I loved this blog post at bebeloo (found thanks to Design Mom, Gabrielle Blair) about what she’d like to do with her 94 days of summer. I counted (my math skills are very poor, by-the-by) and I think I’ve got about 63 days left so here’s my list of...Heat Recalled
Nashville, Tennessee: heat shimmered upwards from the pebbly driveway at my grandparents’ house. It practically hissed alongside the sound of insects’ wings. Heat had a visual; this is what I learned, a shininess. We were kids. A little hot weather...What Do Feminist Toddlers Wear? The Disney Princess Sandals Installment
This whole pretty thing, it’s really confusing to me. Here I am, mama to a very pretty (oh, of course I think that, but besides what I think, it seems to be echoed constantly by others without the same level of investment) two year-old girl. Despite the fact...Trails
I was in a writers’ group for many years. The group originated with four first year MFA students, four young women, two with curly hair, two with straight hair. We were all in our twenties and single, all differently but similarly struggling through. We wrote...Saskia & Shiloh & Boys & Girls & Clothes
Given her history for being an outspoken kind of celebrity and one who provokes (and sometimes also really inspires), is it any surprise at all that if a celebrity’s child might just stand out as a push against overwhelming trend it’d be one of Angelina...Should These Be Our Daughters' Stories?
These are the kinds of stories we should not even have to discuss: whether women whose backs are truly against the proverbial wall obtain access—just to remember, access means funding—in order to terminate pregnancies that require termination to relieve...Neat Tricks
Years ago (and gosh, when I say years, I mean twenty-four or something crazy like that), I went to Russia (well, then the Soviet Union) with a peace group. We led a series of workshops, many of them nearly clandestine meetings, incorporating Joanna Macy’s...One Morning, Three Kids, Three Ages, One Mama
There are things unique to parenting across a wide age spectrum, and one of them, one that continually surprises me, is how you have to treat your children differently (and by different standards) at the very same time. One morning last week was case in point. Picture...Under the Moon
My dear husband thinks I walk to town more often now that the new frozen yogurt joint is open. He’s probably correct, I do love me that Goberry. And that was my destination yesterday evening when he’d taken the kids to a pickle-making laboratory that was...Five Years
Here I am again, copying someone’s neat blog post idea. This one on Flotsam was written to mark her five-year blog-o-versary wherein she ponders what else she’s been doing for the last five years. I’ve been blogging at Standing in the Shadows for...Hugs
Leaving Sunnyside one day this week, Saskia was in a hugging mood. Unfortunately for her, Allesandra didn’t want a hug, nor did Alli, nor did Vaishali. So it goes in the lives of toddlers. The desire to hug isn’t always mutual and you have to learn to ask...Random Jumble
Subtitle: Me. Recently, I’ve copied a couple of people’s blog post ideas (including a summer wish list of things to do: I mean to go back and mark it up like Damaris at bebeloo has done. Haven’t so far. I’ve managed to complete number...One Degree
There’s so much about local food to savor. Just this past week, I spent time contemplating how very delicate lettuce is in comparison to the hearty arugula that preceded it in my salad bowl just weeks ago. I also bit into my first of the season tart Zestar apple...Half-Birthday, Letter Home, & School News: All in One Day
On Thursday, Saskia turned two-and-a-half*. We didn’t mark it beyond singing “Happy Half-Birthday” at a couple of random moments, which ultimately confused her. She understands birthday. This half stuff, well, she isn’t quite ready to parse out...Cranky Mood (Mine)
You know when you hit those eddies of blah? That’d be me today. Hot. Tired. A big weekend that demanded my being “on” brought me toward this little blah. Partly, I drove a lot. Driving on the highway makes me feel tense and therefore when it’s...Pipe Dreams
Here’s a question I’m asked an awful lot: How do you write so much while raising four children? A: I don’t sleep much. Childcare. Seriously, I don’t sleep much. The rest of the answer includes that I love to write and that I’m trying to...Parenting Lesson #
Let it be said that that number fill-in-the-blank about parenting goes like this: you can anticipate many things, and then you’re bowled over by what should be obvious and you totally missed. A task like sending one’s child to overnight camp for the first...Breather
Every day/I see or hear/something/that more or less/kills me/with delight/that leaves me/like a needle/in the haystack/of light—Mary Oliver, Mindful I turned 47. Here’s what I did for my birthday: I ended up on the Cape (near Orleans) while my seven...Reentry
After 48 hours of solitude (for the first time in at least more than eight years) on the Cape, I returned home—three-hour drive a contributor to this feeling—exhausted. Mostly, the exhaustion stemmed from having let my guard down just the teeniest bit....Table, House, Life
Kids keep growing. Back-to-school forms keep arriving. Work keeps happening (hooray! Freelance writers love deadlines). Kids’ art keeps accumulating. Everyone’s stuff keeps accumulating (and we don’t really spend much time shopping). Laundry requires...Peachy
A week after my incredibly wonderful break from everyone, I’m solo with the two smaller kiddies. Dear husband took the older pair to Portland, Maine (combo visit to sister, visit with grandparents vacationing there and chance to eat at nice restaurants and see a...Fixing What's Broken
I promise that it won’t be long before the school year and writing deadlines and meetings and apple picking (and a lot of applesauce making) will overtake but here at the tip end of summer with a couple of kids plus a husband away, I am trying to chip away at...Perfectionism, Reality (& Self-Esteem)
While surely I am stoppable—I have four stories to write plus blog ahead this week, one school starting, little childcare, a couple of greet-families-for-school events and more—I seem unable to help myself; I must keep plugging away with the end of summer...Soft Launches, Soft Landings
This week, my second guy—first of the four sibs—returns to school. It’s a new school for him, Hilltown Cooperative Charter Public School. At the nearly last gasp, his terrible numbers in two charter school lotteries came up (into August) and a visit...First First Day
Could I say that our bad turn actually began the day before at our most favorite place, Tuesday Market? No, I can’t quite bring myself to lay blame entirely on the mushrooms. That wouldn’t be fair. It wasn’t their fault. Nor could I responsibly lay...Oh, Alexander
To be all bloggy and serial-post-ish, if you read my last piece, you know that mushrooms did not make it better and that we’ve been having a few of those days (but who’s counting?). Throughout this swampy, soupy, clingy, dragged out week, I keep running...Heart in Hand
For JM Sorrell Things in our lives do not always go as planned, so when my friend called with the very sad news her father was in hospice care and she needed to pick up and be with him during this time, I instantly agreed to officiate at the wedding she had agreed to...Last First Day
It’s no surprise that with four kids in four schools, the first day of school was neither a singular event nor did it occur on just one day. Turned out, the first day was broken into three first first days. If this blog’s software let get many photos onto...Growth Patterns in September
When you’ve been watching your kids over many years, you start to notice patterns, like with some kids things get tricky just before the birthday as if developmental leaps are timed to sync up or how when big, growing and stretching events are taking place...Democracy in Action=Putting Your Two Feet In
The part of democracy that’s about participating in the larger community, specifically helping to make the process of community (not a verb, yet an active entity) function, always gives me a thrill. I feel it even when I am in despair about the politics of the...That Whole Three Good Things Idea
I wrote about being reminded of this simple practice, one I often do with my kids: note three good things about the day. Like getting enough sleep, it’s so deceptively simple—and, if you do it, so powerful. ** I’ll admit, this recent patch has been...Reframing, Spinning Out From
I’m not a practicing Jew, as in, I don’t belong to a congregation these days nor do I go to a place of worship for holidays, nor do I even observe holidays in any way you could deem the least bit traditional. That is to say, to the extent we bring Judaism...Whoosh
Silly little parenting adage: the days can be slow but the years rush by in a flash. My original baby, the guy who made us into parents (the practice baby, as my mother likes to refer to him) turned fifteen on Sunday. Should I write refer to that silly little...No Complaints About Backyard Chickens in the Neighborhood, Just the Moose
Amongst the things I watch early in the morning while I work are the sky lifting with light and the runners going by and my next-door neighbor heading off for her morning bike ride and our shared paper delivery woman bounding up my next-door neighbor’s front...No One Told Me: #896
I have, over the years, thought that a great little book—the kind people buy when they have no idea what else to give as a gift—would be essentially a list. Title: 1000 Things About Parenthood No One Ever Told You. Here’s #896: You do not remain the...One Baby Turns Eight
Three years ago feels like a very long time indeed. I guess before always recedes that much further when you are in the midst of after, and for us, autumn three years ago was all about anticipating a baby. Unlike the ones before this baby, I had nothing ping-ponging...Harvest Season, This Place
On a rainy morning a few days ago, I drove toward the hills to interview a couple of artists (I really love my work, do I mention that often enough?) and the leaves had caught. That’s what it’s like, a match taking hold. I passed by blazing trees. As if...Over-done-stretched-cluttered-spent
Am I so overstretched and thereby scattered I cannot exactly pull together a coherent essay? Well, yeah. There are so many things going on evidenced by the state of the kitchen counter where I do my work. It’s a total mess. If I started the to list all the...A Monday Moment
October seemed to arrive decisively this weekend (the first weekend of the month), all brisk and breezy and somehow snap-your-fingers different. I do not have appropriate anything together: jackets that fit, all the other things we might need momentarily like hats and...Milestones, Missing from the Books
For the longest time, I’ve been aware that the baby books—you know, those infant year tomes you fill with firsts—both have it right and are misleading. What’s right is observe and celebrate your children’s “milestones.”...Picnic
We had ourselves one of those days you live in New England to experience as your own. The air felt cool while the sun shone warm. Leaves flapped from trees in all colors. The sky couldn’t have been bluer. The clouds, not many of them, seemed suspended, fluffy...Pondering Chapter Books & Picture Books
Having read every single volume of L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz series—there are fourteen tales, in case you didn’t know—to my three year-old son, a precocious and book obsessed sort, even from infancy, I know that young kids can become...Love Made Visible
There’s a moment each autumn when the glory of the season itself catches me by surprise. If you live in New England—or have visited in, say, October—you probably know what I mean: sunlight, robin’s egg blue skies and golden, orange and crimson...Intoverted Extrovert
I am pretty sure that my dear husband would tell you just about the funniest thing I ever told him was that I thought I was an introvert. He nearly spit in my face laughing at that one. My response was to burst out laughing with him first, and then try to explain what...E-Edition
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