Posts from the “Love” Category

Why don’t we take a walk?

Posted on June 14, 2018

The other day I heard a ping on my phone. Sean had texted me a photo of Finley and me from a wedding. I immediately remembered the moment, she’d been invited to be a flower girl, but in the church, she was overwhelmed by the enormity of the event. I don’t mean by the people or even the grandeur of the church, it was her dawning that this was a significant life event. I held her in my arms and told her how much the bride loved her and how good she would do walking with the flowers. She kept saying, “I’m just a little afraid.” Since then I have carved out times to hold her when she isn’t scared and ways to be…

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Start New

Posted on March 26, 2017

Friday into Saturday I was in a funk. I tried to push through, moving from one thing to the next like I could outrun it. The funk clung. Sean knows me, recognizes these lows after 18 years together, and has mastered worrying from a gentle distance. He did things to clear my path—setting the girls up with activities, passing me a plate of eggs and bacon, setting a bottle of sriracha next to it and saying “Eat, please.” I felt myself slipping deeper, colors began to mute and I forgot all the reasons I’d been grateful for the weekend to arrive. Despite the clutch of nothingness, I ate. One solid achievement I’ve unlocked in my 40s is to listen to him more often. I still resist…

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One Day More

Posted on March 19, 2017

  Our arrival to the next phase has been an exercise in time bending. My friend Lindsey Mead often says, “Years are minutes,” which to me is breathtaking in its truth. I can still feel the sensation of nursing the girls, whether for sustenance or to ease an injury. Their tiny heads nestled in my arm, impossibly soft fingers patting my side or stroking my chin. I remember the chill of the hard lift chair at Pico beneath me as I watched the three of them ride the lift alone together for the first time. Just like that, it was over, they ride together now. It was the perfect metaphor for how the success of parenting is in shepherding the kids to be able to…

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Dying to Remember in 2016

Posted on December 27, 2016

I remember reading the newspaper headline about River Phoenix. I never once thought, “This took too long for me to find out.” As the idols of my youth die and friends post about broken bones and their parents’ dying, I realize I am old, old enough to be able to anticipate that people I have known or loved will be dying. George Michael, Prince, Michael Jackson, none of them perfect, but oh, the spaces they held in my life—the guy who blasted Father Figure on a first date with me, “This makes me think of the girl who is pregnant with my kid” or Michael Jackson for just being so different and not making me feel like a misfit for not looking like a girl…

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Love, Doubt, and Guilt Dance on the Head of a Pin

Posted on February 3, 2016

“Do you even know what I wore to bed last night?’ The question made contact like a right hook. Finley and I were waiting for the bus in a driving rain. I’d worked late the night before and, as I always do, I’d slipped into their room to kiss them goodnight. I brushed my lips as delicately on Briar’s face, knowing that despite her pleas for me to wake her, she would start disoriented and upset. Ave, up in the top bunk, is the heaviest sleeper, but never fails to murmur, “My mama, I love you,” before rolling over and back to sleep. “You know what, honey? I don’t know, but I did come in to kiss you last night.” I said the words…

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