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 [...]
I’m off this morning to Florida to spend the weekend with my friends from Princeton. There are a couple of notable absences, but there will be a large group of us and I am eager for two days in such familiar and joyful company. We all knew each other when we were becoming who we [...]
I am back from an evening of old and new friends, listening to the rain, wistful and thoughtful. I met my dear friend Trintje for a glass of wine. I don’t see her nearly enough but when I do we slip right back into the comfortable rapport of old friends. We know each others’ backstories, [...]
Dear Whit, Today you start kindergarten. I’m astonished, in a way both cliched and powerful, that we are here. For three years you didn’t say much of anything. Your first preschool teacher, in fact, urged us to have you evaluated by a speech therapist. She even gently suggested that you might have cognitive delays. Within [...]
The universe has a way of timing things just right. Just days ago I was sad about summer ending, about the closing of this magical time with my children, these three months dotted with highlights and plenty of tiny moments in between. And then they became monsters. Oh, wow, is it time for school. Something [...]
I listened to Fix You by Coldplay on repeat yesterday morning on my commute to work. It was my second to last day in the office, and my fear of change is really taking root. As I’ve written before, I’m not good at change. I’m especially not good at endings, which feel like they’re piling [...]
I’ve been thinking today about the places in our lives that hold our rawest and most treasured memories. Sometimes physical space seems so mute, so indifferent; it surprises me that somehow the important moments that have transpired in a place don’t remain there, echoing, animate, alive somehow. Maybe they do. Occasionally, in returning to a [...]
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 [...]
Courage. I’ve been thinking about this word, this concept, this idea, all weekend. Trying to figure out what to share for this inaugural Five for Ten post. Certainly I don’t feel I have much, so that was easy to dismiss. I kept coming back, over and over again, to Susie. Susie was like a mother [...]
