Archive for

Always there

Posted on April 27, 2012

I had a scar once. It was the subtlest line of slightly raised tissue on the uppermost spot on my right thigh. I was fascinated with it as a little girl, crafting different scenarios by which I came to have it. These weren’t stories I shared with anyone, just events I explored in my mind. I had dalliances with perfectionism as a girl, worrying that this or that wasn’t just so, but this scar, this mark, it suggested having done something. I had braved something. And I loved this scar with its delicate pink and white streaks. I still have it, but it does not take center stage as it used to. Now my fingers are more likely to trace the sprays of lines…

+Read more

“Will she still be here?”

Posted on April 27, 2012

Finley has been spending a large part of her days at Nana’s house. She goes to school in the morning, most days she asks me to drive her and requests that we not take “the secret way” which is code for an alley parents can take to have teachers pick the kids up and shepherd them into the building. We walk in hand-in-hand, kiss dramatically at the door and, and then off she goes for 2 hours at school and four hours at Nana’s. It was hard for me at first, equal parts guilt and jealousy swirling about the fours hours I might otherwise have her each day. It’s become clear that she loves it. These hours in her day are separate from life…

+Read more

Grateful to Saturday

Posted on April 22, 2012

I ended Friday with a bit of a broken heart. It was a balance of professional disappointment and personal heartache. There are invitabilities in work and home for all of us, lately they just seem to be throttling closer and closer to home in such a way that I get it— I can’t control it. I can only impact how I choose to deal with it, which doesn’t make it hurt or infuriate me any less, but there it is. Sean and I talked about what to do, or really, he gently moved to and fro sweeping away any responsibilities I might normally have and every so often saying in a gentle voice, “If you need a run, a walk or just some time,…

+Read more

Give and Take

Posted on April 12, 2012

This week is spring break and I am not home. Each morning one or both of us have dropped the girls off at Nana and Jeannie’s. It’s a luxury. It’s also a sacrifice. I find myself feeling like a sham at work and at home as I take this week that so many parents are spending with their kids, and I work. We started this business when my belly was just beginning to grow with Briar inside of me. Our family grew along with our business. I have spent late nights, endless weekends and white-knuckle days building this business, and then a second. I have also spent afternoons I might otherwise have missed, playing with my girls and enjoying swaths of sunlight. Even as I…

+Read more

Sticks and Stones

Posted on April 9, 2012

I can barely manage the questioning looks the girls give me sometimes, so I cannot even begin to fathom what it would be like to be a public figure subject to international, round-the-clock scrutiny. And let’s be honest, public scrutiny grows ever closer to a modern day witch hunt. Should political figures be questioned about their morality? I’m not sure, maybe if they shove one persona down our throats they should be called out if they’re being dishonest. Infidelity? Sketchy financial dealings? Disappointing, but I just don’t know where the line is.  A place I feel vastly more comfortable standing up and growing my throat clearing into a defiant, “Hell no” yell is the heaping amounts of criticism, speculation and ridicule waged on women.…

+Read more