How shall the heart be reconciled/ to its feast of losses? (Stanley Kunitz) This time of year is undeniably about endings. This is so even as the world bursts into bloom around me, asserting the fact that no matter what, life will return and triumph. I am always heavy-hearted in the spring, as the school [...]
This weekend was glorious: finally, full sunshine, open windows letting in soft spring air, children biking and running until they were exhausted, and dinner at a restaurant so nearby that Matt and I could walk there through the dusky spring evening. Saturday I spent five hours in the car scanning unfamiliar radio stations. I’ve written [...]
I’ve written before about my beloved teacher James Valhouli, the first person who really made me believe I had something to say. Sitting at my desk here, I look right at a photograph of Mr. Valhouli. He was without a doubt the most important teacher I’ve ever had, and I still think about him every [...]
This was one of the most special days of my life. One of our days at Disney, Grace and I snuck away to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We were both spellbound. I have never been somewhere more crowded – honestly. Harry Potter made walking through the Magic Kingdom seem like an amble [...]
On Saturday Whit asked to try biking without his training wheels. He’s a cautious fellow, uninclined to try something new until he’s fairly sure he can do it. In the past he has been adamantly opposed to trying to bike on two wheels. So we though we ought to jump on his new interest. And [...]
Reading A Double Life reminded me vividly the weeks and months after Grace’s birth, which were the darkest of my life. As she recounts it in her memoir, Lisa Catherine Harper’s depression seems considered, thoughtful. I plunged back into my own, remembering how inelegant my complete and utter collapse was, how inchoate the roaring of [...]
I’ve been thinking an awful lot about achievement, and the Race to Nowhere, and the ways we hide from our lives. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about how complicated it gets when the ways you hide from your life are applauded by the world. For me this has mostly been true: whether it’s running or studying [...]
Last week I read Amy at Never True Tales’ words on The Witching Years. She writes about the years that her children were young, with a combination of regret, loss, gratitude and wonder that I recognize intimately. It’s clearer here, on the other side. In the light. With kids who brush their own teeth and [...]
Memory. Where to start? I’ve written so much about it. About the mysterious alchemy whereby small moments, inconsequential as we lived them, become significant, weighty memories, full of recollected details. About the way that certain songs can transport me back, instantly and vividly, to the past. About the occasional awareness of the memory of a [...]
When our family lived in London, Hilary and I attended a school called St. Paul’s Girls School. The school had enormous, intimidating brass handles on the front doors, a High Mistress we were supposed to curtsy to, and a grand mahogany assembly hall where we gathered every morning. Each morning we stood up from our [...]
