“Could it be because it reminds us that we are alive, of our mortality, of our individual souls- which, after all, we are too afraid to surrender but yet make us feel more miserable than any other thing? But isn’t it also pain that often makes us most aware of self? It is a terrible [...]
Ted Kennedy’s death touched me deeply, as it did many people. He is certainly a mythic figure for Americans, and probably for those of us from Massachusetts in particular. I wish I knew more of Kennedy’s legislative legacy and particular political achievements. I don’t. I do know, however, that he emerged from a life of [...]
Whit last week. You can see his sister hiding under a towel on the couch. This is just another regular night at my house. Email this post
My father-in-law had a heart transplant on November 26, 2002. I think about it all the time, but especially around Thanksgiving. Grace was born on October 26, 2002. That was, needless to say, an emotional and scary time. I was in the deep dark hole of postpartum depression, Matt was at the hospital every evening [...]
Lisa Belkin at Motherlode today published a letter from a mother to her son, marking the occasion of his starting kindergarten. I read it with tears streaming down my face. And then I remembered that on precisely the same occasion last year I wrote a letter to Grace. Rereading that made me cry even more. [...]
Sorry, no deep thoughts today, or even articulate sentences. I’m just too tired. 1. Cherry chapstick. This is my oh-so-sophisticated version of lipstick. In college Q used to like the Dr Pepper kind because it even has a slight pink tint along with that delicious DP flavor. I tried to use lip gloss for a [...]
Read a really interesting piece today about how writing – and writing for the internet in particular – should be about telling authentic stories from our lives. About the importance of returning to the crux of narrative, whatever the topic. And it made me think of little stories from my life that I can tell. [...]
Dear college roommate C and I had dinner last night at the Cheesecake Factory. It was downright hilarious watching her approach the 20 page menu. Every time I go to the Cheesecake (which is not that often, thank you and thank God) I am amazed, again, at a spiral-bound menu with page numbers (that the [...]
Loving this song. It’s my current obsession (following, for example, Coldplay’s Fix You). I love the words and the tune (that which I can hear, that is, given that I am tone deaf). I love the notion that the lines across my face tell you who I am. I love that stories don’t really have [...]
I can feel how large, how essential this moment is as it’s happening; that is what I have come to love about being an adult, to the extent that I can claim that title: that one knows more about how good things are, how much they matter, as they’re happening, that knowledge isn’t necessarily retrospective [...]
