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Do you see me?

Posted on December 9, 2013

I’ve clicked the camera icon on my phone before, inspired by something I hear the girls doing around the corner, an unexpected blossom on a gray day, or by my hair doing exactly what I ask of it. I do it to preserve a moment, sometimes for myself, other times to share with people. What happens after I open the camera is another thing. Sometimes the moment has passed, the girls have disbanded, their harmonious play nothing but a what was as the camera zooms in on a patch of bare carpet, or the shot has closed eyes or a flash of underwear I don’t want to broadcast. Editing is nothing new, just as staging isn’t new. What does seem to me to be…

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She Was Here

Posted on December 5, 2013

Sometimes when I meet people I have a visceral response, instantly feeling inadequate or unsure, other times there is nothing remarkable to note. I remember meeting Grace, Sean’s paternal grandmother, and feeling completely natural. I never tried to impress her, though she often remarked about things that made me feel grateful for her approval. Unsolicited praise for your parenting is just something that doesn’t come along that often, and when it does, it can smack of false generosity. Grace was not someone who suffered fools. She could even come across as salty at times, despite being an incredibly religious and kind person. I think it was because of that, when she would laugh or say a kind word, it always seemed very genuine. “Your…

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Did you say balls?

Posted on November 27, 2013

They were shrieking and screaming with enough laughter peppered in that I knew no one was in pain. Sean was trimming his #Movember whiskers in the bathroom and I was assessing all the magazines I have subscribed to during school magazine drives, but never actually get around to reading. I was reaching for Harper’s Bazaar when I heard the unmistakable siren of laughter that means someone said or did something very naughty. I walked down the hall as the sounds of laughter and gasping for breath built. “You hit me in my balls!” “Look at her, look at her, she can’t move because of her balls.” I leaned in the doorway, “What did you just say?” Briar sat ramrod straight in the bed, her…

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Fitting the pieces

Posted on November 22, 2013

I understand now how quickly time passes once we’ve built our childhood foundation of hazy summers peppered with popsicles, melted crayons, and pennies flattened on train tracks. I am drawn to those days and years that passed like lifetimes. It’s looking behind a two-way mirror— What is it like over there where/when next year isn’t bearing down on you with ferocity? How do you start each day without the frustration of the day before? I want to revisit not fretting over a clock or calendar. As a mom my measure of time has come to be gauged by how long a pair of pants will last before skinny ankles peek through or pearly white belly presses at the waist, or whether I can wait to…

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Flush!

Posted on November 20, 2013

I’ve always wanted to do a cleanse, but the juice cleanses and other packaged kits you can buy have always been outside the range of what I am comfortable paying to effectively purge my system. There is also a part of me that wonders if my desire to do a cleanse is in any way related to the eating disorder that haunted and controlled me during college. When I was at BlogHer last summer I met a woman from Garden of Life, which defines itself as being a company committed to empowering people to attain extraordinary health. As I raise these girls of ours, run a business, and work at my marriage I think that extraordinary health may be slightly out of reach, but I…

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