Since it’s the season of blizzards, I thought it timely to repost this. My thoughts go out for the safety and fun of those hunkered down braving the Blizzard of 2015. As I hold down a house with two sick … Continue reading
Category Archives: parenting
What Handheld Devices Have Done to Family TV Viewing
TV when I was a kid was a different animal than today. Sure, it had its detractors and proponents, but what it didn’t have was 24-7 programming—anything you can imagine watching and then some—at your fingertips in your pocket. We’ve … Continue reading
Old Bottles, Time Capsules, and Going Home
Walking into the backyard this weekend, I was intrigued to see my thirteen-year-old kneeling under the grapefruit tree, digging. “What are you doing?” I asked. “I’m planting a time capsule,” she said. I smiled at the word “planting.” It seemed … Continue reading
St. Martin’s – Lighting the Season and Adopting Holidays
“…[a]lluding to the snows of that season, the Germans say that “St Martin comes riding on a white horse.”[1] Mid-November marks one of my favorite adopted holidays. Why adopted? My husband is German. And while we Americans share many holidays … Continue reading
Airplane Conversations and the Geography of Heart
What is it about air travel that strips you of something of yourself? That allows you to open up with a passing stranger that otherwise wouldn’t happen? What is it? On a recent flight, I sat next to another woman … Continue reading
Meteor Mornings and Motorcycle Rides
My eyes locked on the hot white streak in the sky in front of me. Saturday morning. Up before the birds, I was walking to the south. I couldn’t believe it: the streak grew into a fireball rimmed with brilliant … Continue reading
“What’s a hook-up, anyway?”
Words and meanings are slippery. Crossing cultures and time, words have a way of morphing. Generational Syntactical Blunders One evening after dinner, a young man visited our household for dessert and studying with my oldest … Continue reading
Carve Out Writing Time & Guard it Like a Zealot… Until It’s Time to Make Chicken Soup
The title pretty much sums up my week. I worked for days, banking time to free up this last Thursday and Friday for working on the book. “Only two chapters to go. How hard could it be?” I won’t tell … Continue reading
Laughing into memory: Sharing a Buffalo blizzard with my teenager & mother
Last week my fifteen-year-old laughed at seeing her breath one morning as she scraped frost off her the windshield of the car. For the first time. My pleasure came from the pure, uncensored delight of that laugh. She’s a teenager. … Continue reading
“He asked me to be his Valentine, Mommy. What do I tell him?”
My twelve-year-old posed this question. With the days of the sparkly Valentine’s box and confetti-decorated, pink cupcakes mostly behind us, I pondered my own questions. Who is this boy? What is he like? What does it mean to be someone’s … Continue reading
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