Month: December 2012

I read When It Happens to You by Molly Ringwald, The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe, The Longest Way Home by Andrew McCarthy, a lot of Billy Collins poetry, and Magical Journey by Katrina Kenison.

We spent Thanksgiving with my parents and 20+ members of my father’s family.  Pops’ absence was felt keenly.  We have lost our patriarch.

We returned to the cold, empty beach that we’ve come to love for a couple of gorgeous, crystal clear, chilly hours.

There are several joyful playground outings, and one adventure to MIT where we wander down the infinite corridor.

Grace and Whit really enjoy one Saturday morning at a local food pantry; we commit to spending time doing that more often.

Our kitchen table is overtaken by two matching Lego advent calendars (one Star Wars, one Friends).

Our holiday traditions swing into full force, and their familiar cadence is a comfort and joy to us all.

My favorite blog post: Comfort in the Darkest Season

I’ll tell you a secret: poems hide.
In the bottoms of our shoes, they are sleeping.
They are the shadows drifting across our ceilings the moment before we wake up.
What we have to do is live in a way that lets us find them.
– Naomi Shihab Nye

Grace and I spent an absolutely wonderful, tremendously memorable weekend in New York with her best friend and her mother (one of my dearest friends) to mark their 10th birthdays.

For Halloween, Grace was a member of the US gold-medal-winning soccer team, and Whit was Harry Potter.

We enjoyed two gloriously warm, sunny, and unscheduled days by the ocean with my parents over Columbus Day.

My favorite blog post: Ten Years Ago

We finally found our final state license plate, Alaska.  We saw it almost an hour south of Boston, on our way to take family pictures with Blue Lily Photography.

Whit had his first hockey practice.

Grace wrote her first post on this blog.

Grace turned ten.

Hurricane Sandy came.  Other than losing power for 8 hours, we were blessedly unscathed.

I read Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, and Teach Your Children Well by Madeline Levine.

To live content with small means. To seek elegance rather than luxury…. listen to stars and birds and babes and sages with an open heart. To study hard, think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions. Never hurry. In a word, to let the spiritual, the unbidden and the unconscious rise up through the common. This is my symphony. ~ William Henry Channing

I read Don’t Miss This by Jena Strong, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman, The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker, The Rules of Inheritance by Claire Bidwell Smith, I Couldn’t Love You More by Jillian Medoff, Before You Know Kindness by Chris Bohjalian, Light Years by James Salter

We spent a week with my sister and her family, newly home from Jerusalem, and celebrated both my mother’s birthday and the Fourth of July.

Grace, Whit and I went out to Walden early one morning for a swim, and found the pond deserted, still, quiet, and sacred.

I took Grace to sleep away camp for the second year in a row.  Last year, she clung to me as we said goodbye, crying, asking me not to leave.  This year, she waved at me, frowned briefly at the tears in my eyes, and turned into her cabin with her friends.  Just as it should be.  I made it out of the gates and had to pull over to cry for a moment.

My favorite blog post: Transition

We played the License Plate Game, and by the end of July had found all but four states (Alaska, Hawaii, Nebraska, and Nevada).

We spent a wonderful weekend with one of Grace’s godmothers and one of my best friends, and her family (including my godson).

I participated in the August break for the 2nd year, sharing a photograph rather than words each day.

I turned 38.

Grace, Whit, and I went to Legoland for four days and the four of us went to Lake Champlain.  The second half of August was stuffed full of sunshine, laughter, pictures, and happy memories.

If you’re really listening, if you’re awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold evermore wonders. ~ Andrew Harvey

I attended Grace and Whit’s school Closing Ceremonies and, predictably, bawled.

We went to Storyland for the third year in a row, on the day school got out.  It was marvelous.

I read Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, Gone by Cathi Hanauer, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

One weekend, while Matt and Whit hiked and camped in the White Mountains, Grace and I visited Pops.  It is the last time I see him.

We spent a magical, peaceful weekend just the four of us by the ocean.

Grace spent 2+ hours in an MRI machine in the name of scientific research.

My favorite blog post: Maternal

Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article about in the Atlantic, Why Women Still Can’t Have It All, ignites conversation and debate among my friends both virtual and real, and precipitates much reflection about what “having it all” looks like for each of us.

I am proud to see my first piece run on the Huffington Post, 10 Things I Want My Daughter to Know Before She Turns 10.

What do I make of all this texture? What does it mean about the kind of world in which I have been set down? The texture of the world, its filigree and scrollwork, means that there is the possibility for beauty here, a beauty inexhaustible in its complexity, which opens to my knock, which answers in me a call I do not remember calling, and which trains me to the wild and extravagant nature of the spirit I seek. – Annie Dillard