I had a very hard time with my Mother, her words mostly wounding, her anger terrifying. It was my father’s kind and loving heart that saved my childhood and my spirit. So when Mother’s Day comes round a tug of war ensues. I feel my heart segue-ing not to memories of my own childhood but [ Read More ]
Remember when the speed of life and the speed of light were not identical? Remember screened-in porches meant for sitting and talking or just thinking long thoughts about life? Remember garden swings, sweet summer afternoons wandering a meadow, picking apples in the fall, a Christmas tree you’d trekked through snow to find and then helped [ Read More ]
There it was on top of the armoire, quiet in the dust of the years, the bright red newsboy cap that had been my Father’s favorite as long as I could remember. Like the tin soldier in Eugene Field’s poem Little Boy Blue, “awaiting the touch of a little hand, the smile of a little [ Read More ]
Love manifests in the strangest ways. Just like courage. And understanding. Sometimes it sneaks up on you and you don’t realize how great a gift it is or how much self-sacrifice was required of the giver. Until later, much later in the game of life, when you’ve grown old enough to know that nothing is [ Read More ]
I have a beloved sister, Conny, nearly 13 years younger than I. We’re quite different in appearance, profession, proclivities, talents and even in sexual orientation, but in our hearts, we’re pretty much cut from the same cloth. We’ve worked together in one way or another, for a lifetime, certain this is not the first lifetime [ Read More ]
This blog appeared in the New York Times on January 15, 2013. If you’d like to read it, please follow this link for the full text: New York Times, Face to Face With Mom in the Mirror
When I was a child, I thought of my mother’s sister Mary as the Dowager Empress of the World. She was tall and stately and would sit on her chair like a queen on a throne, her adoring daughters dancing attendance on her as if she thoroughly deserved it. In truth, she probably did, as [ Read More ]
My childhood was spent in a haze of books and familial propriety. The small-town-America life, where children safely walked alone to school and dawdled their way home, lulled into daydreams by the sweetness of the neighbors’ gardens, is probably gone now, but the visuals are clear to me still. A wall of rambling roses at [ Read More ]
I’ve been thinking about my Father a lot this Holiday Season. Missing him… wishing he were here with me and Dakota to watch It’s a Wonderful Life for the umpteenth time. Papa was a rare bird. He laughed a lot and taught me useful things… how to hang storm windows… how to recite poetry with [ Read More ]
The ghosts of Christmas past Wandered by my tree just now A cup of tea in hand, I stopped To admire the sweetness of the nearly trimmed tree And there you were My Mommy and Daddy Young and shiny, hopeful as when On Christmas morning I’d open the presents You’d saved to buy.