cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
I put it off for as long as I possibly could—the slimming down and organization of our fourth bedroom. We established it as the playroom when we moved in with our little girls six years ago, but I was finally accepting that, at ages 15 and 12, they were doing far less playing than ever…
Read More
I did it. My head spun in a disoriented fog. My limbs trembled with weakness. I felt sick to my stomach and my heart felt as though a boulder was sitting upon it. Everything within me screamed at the top of my I-can-barely-breathe lungs and I wondered if maybe curling up and actually dying would…
Read More
She is the ultimate weatherer of storms, a lifetime of inevitable storms because living means storms. You can’t have one without the other. A post-World War I childhood, adolescence forged during the Great Depression, entering adulthood as the nation entered World War II, she lived through storms.
Read More
I am done proving me. My life is not one prolonged job interview, a permanent Olympic trial, an ongoing all-state music audition. I am not a college application for admissions officials to peruse, an employee scrutinized for business acumen or her annual performance review, an associate striving to make partner. I refuse to be
Read More
She’s giggling, running, faster and faster, So fast that chubby legs cannot keep up with internal thrill But she tries valiantly…and goes down. I’m watching, delighting in her delight Yet simultaneously cognizant of the great risk of physical abandon and asphalt to her toddler body. Gravity–real life–fulfills what I had hoped against. Bright pink shorts…
Read More
I have a vague memory from my early years — perhaps I was 3 or 4 — of swimming with my siblings and cousins at my aunt’s apartment pool on a golden summer afternoon. At some point amidst the fun, I went from sweet and splashy to exhausted and unwound. Having the self-awareness of the…
Read More