Speaking up. Speaking out. Speakimg your mind… with confidence. Sounds easy, right? But it’s not. And you know what I just realized? I spend more time in conversation with adolescents than with adults. I think that’s a great thing. I am more inquisitive, more engaged, and more myself when dealing with those under the age […]
Role Reversal
There’s little question that if you ask me what my job is, I’ll answer “parent.” That doesn’t preclude the fact that I am a writer, and many other things; that my professional endeavors predated my maternal duties by more than a decade. But my primary job these days – as it has been for years […]
Wits’ End
It’s another parenting morning during which I can feel the hairs on my head repainting themselves silver and the fist in my gut tightening. A typical morning with a teenager under stress and it’s become the rhythm of every morning for the most part, and I’ll sum it by saying: it’s rough. No matter how […]
Monday Morning Moments
After a really lousy few days, there’s nothing like a different sort of reality check. For example, everything that could have gone wrong that didn’t. On a Monday! For example: My computer didn’t crash. My car started despite the cold. I got the kid to school on time. His painting project is going well. I […]
Send Saint Bernards. Kegs of coffee. Or another pair of hands and eyes.
Reality: I have been writing through continuing sludge these past days – and very quickly. I’m not sure how I”m managing to do it (the “quickly” part helps); I’ve been struggling through an on-again off-again migraine, blurred vision, physical exhaustion. But no matter how I feel, there are tasks that need addressing. And there is […]
Heartbreak Hill
Sludge. It’s a good word. Satisfying. And it sounds like what it is. You know. Onomatopoeia. And right now, while I don’t think I could pronounce onomatopoeia (or anything much over two syllables), sludge works fine for me. It describes the sensation of my brain function, not to mention the manner in which I am […]
All-Nighter
You know when you look at a document and you see what you want to see? You know when you pull someone else into the process, and that person looks, and verifies what you (think you) saw? You know when you check one last time out of some deeply rooted obsessive quality, or perhaps a […]
So Quick
Three days is a short visit by any standard – my son flew in, my son was here, my son flew out. For three days, there were teens in and out, there was assistance running errands, there was laughter in and around the house. And of course, the car keys – in his pocket. Still, […]
Sweet Sixteen
I have reason to feel sad today, just a little. And I do. And happy, and I do. No. My sweet teen is seventeen, not sixteen. And no, it’s not his birthday. But last night as I was finishing up some writing and checking on my son, thinking about how early I needed to rise […]
No Knowledge
It was an odd night of even odder dreams; an odd night because I slept eight hours (exceptional), and odd dreams as I found myself sitting behind a massive wooden desk, part of a management directive to motivate my staff with plastic boy toys. Now, now – not those toys. Strange morphing, scoping, bending wheeled […]