“I never had to choose a subject – my subject rather chose me.” -Ernest Hemingway I’ve loved this quote for a long time. And ever since Saturday night I’ve been thinking about it in light of Margaret Atwood’s provocative poem, Spelling. There are so many lines of that poem that echo in my head, but [...]
My awkward, stumbling search for faith is no secret. I write often of the way I trudge through my days, alternating with lightning speed and cloudy confusion between certainty and doubt. There are times, though, when the idea floating up in my mind seems to be echoed by external messages in a way that can’t [...]
Today: What advertisement made you think this year? I know it’s not new this year, but I continue to be awed and moved by Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. The top video is the one I know best, and every time I see it I find myself almost breathless with a combination of anger and [...]
This picture, of Georgia O’Keeffe by Alfred Stieglitz, was the first page of my thesis. I love the way the image speaks of creativity and procreativity, of the tension and symbiosis between them.The news of Kim Clijster’s US Open win – remarkable because she was the first unseeded winner but also, more notably, because she [...]
A thinking woman sleeps with monsters. – Adrienne Rich Cherish your wilderness. – Maxine Kumin It’s thesis day around here, clearly, with Anne Sexton this morning and Adrienne Rich and Maxine Kumin this evening. I know I have both monsters and wilderness in me, and I know I share Sexton’s view that there is nothing [...]
I read about the case of New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services v. V.M. and B.G. with horror. The story of a laboring woman refusing a cesarean section and, as a direct result, having her newborn daughter (healthy after a vaginal delivery) removed from her custody shocks me. She was declared to have [...]
I read Judith Warner’s column last week with a heavy heart. Of course I do not understand the nuances of the situation so I can’t comment on the specific instance she cites. But the trend, the overall observation she makes, had me nodding my head in sad recognition. Then one of my favorite new blogs, [...]
To the one who made me a daughter and who shows me every day, in ways big and small, how to be a mother: I love you.
Many of you know that birth is an important topic to me personally. Let me say that again: to me personally. I do not consider myself an evangelist and hope to never come across as one. It has struck me more than once that it’s interesting that the universe made the process of becoming a [...]
