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Someday

Posted on May 29, 2012

I read a post* the other day about not counting on someday. It got me thinking about how often I do things thinking they’ll be great memories to have years from now. 10, 20, 40 years from now as I sit beneath a fan on a porch (because oh, how I covet the idea of a porch with a fan. It’s just so deliciously unnecessary and wonderful). I remembered the moments when something took me by surprise and I genuinely reveled in that very moment. It’s a mistake to do it for another time, but keeping a grasp on how not a single moment is guaranteed is very nearly unsustainable. Oer this Memorial Day Weekend I felt very close to grief, aware of loss.…

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Have you ever…

Posted on May 25, 2012

Have you ever had the privilege of knowing, really knowing, exactly in the moment, that you are on the right track? I have friends in real life who are sending up kind words for other friends from past chapters of my real life. I have friends discovered through blogging, enjoyed in person and revisited through Twitter who walk beside me. It isn’t always easy, it isn’t always pretty. It is always dear. Tonight I had a few simple exchanges, a comment on a blog here, a connection with an Etsy artist and 2 episodes of Strawberry Shortcake on the couch with the girls post-bedtime while Sean worked late. They reveled in every moment, as did I. It’s pretty amazing to stop and experience the…

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Let’s Not

Posted on May 22, 2012

Have you seen this post making the rounds? At first glance it could easily be written off as one of those easier-said-than-done, lofty, self-improvement posts that only make you feel worse about yourself, but then you hit number 13 and think, “This was written by a human with real emotions,” and then you read something like this article on aging parents and you consider the space you are occupying between having survived the heady, ignorant decade of your twenties and peeking toward your 40s, when your kids (or the kids) are moving ever more colorfully and dynamically toward autonomy and you are settling into a place that is neither young nor old, a middleness to fight, blend into or what? How do you really…

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Boots of a Different Color

Posted on May 15, 2012

My memory is shaky on things like birthdays and holidays. They almost always seem to sneak up on me in some way that requires me to feign awareness—”Oh, of course I have green things for each girl to wear and little leprechaun top hats,” and “Oh, sure, big doin’s for the holiday weekend. Been planning for months.” I have the best intentions, but the dealine to sign up for things and the second Monday of each month just seem to slip through my fingers. I’ve read beautiful posts by people who would appear to have their acts together—birthday posts right on their children’s birthdays, essays on topical subjects before they cease to be topical. I’ve passed storefronts beautifully decorated to perfectly celebrate the season, when…

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For Mother’s Day

Posted on May 12, 2012

This Mother’s Day, if I could make one request, it would be this: one of my childhood friends, a girl who peppers most of the happiest memories of my youth, needs something, I’d like to help deliver it to her. We fell out of touch as people do, and then reconnected through Facebook. I’ve often chuckled at her pictures, her three rough and tumble boys a stark contrast against my three squealing, boa-loving girls. She in Oklahoma, me in Upstate NY, both so very far from Eugene, Oregon. During movie time in school we used to take her Swatch watch and take turns running it up and down one another’s forearm to pass the time. The watch smelled funny, rubbery and sweaty, and the…

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