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Face It

Posted on January 23, 2013

Standing at the mirror I take inventory of the day and of my face. I play back the conversations I had at work, my train of thought on the solitary drive home, and I scan the shape of my face—it’s more angular than before. I am not sure when the dissatisfaction with the planes of my face started, but it was a constant. I remember biting the lower corners of the inside of my mouth to try and make my cheeks look hollow. I studied make up tutorials on how to accent my cheek bones. I pored over magazine articles about how to apply make-up to your specific face shape. Apple? Square? Triangle? Nothing seemed right. I always felt like a sham because whichever shape…

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Categories: Me

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Lights Up

Posted on January 21, 2013

Sean and I met at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. It was not a simple courtship (are any?), but very little is simple when you’re working in summer stock and have the relentless deadlines and pervasive spirit of temporariness. Eventually though, we made it past the distractions and the monumental chip on my shoulder to discover that we worked very well together. Four years later we got married just outside of Saratoga Springs, New York. We kept a connection to theatre through work we did for the Adirondack Theatre Festival. When we had our daughters, one of whom we gave the middle name Adams after the theater in Williamstown, we made a promise that we would expose them to music and the arts. Our hope…

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Categories: Love, Work

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Remnants

Posted on January 20, 2013

Before bedtime there is a rush to get washed up, each of the girls clambering for a spot at the counter. The stampede to the door is a blur of elbows and feet; neon peace signs, threadbare satin with tattered princess decals, big girl pajamas and nightgowns that have met their last hand-me-down. They wrestle for the tooth paste and vie for the tiny foot stool that is no longer needed. As they brush their teeth they make faces in the mirror, “Look, look, I have a beard” and “Do you see me, I’m a fancy wady with bwue wipstick?” The smack of bare feet on linoleum and boisterous calls of, “Here’s your tooth brush, baby” fill the upstairs. Sometimes I stand just outside…

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Categories: Mama Sap

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Falling

Posted on January 18, 2013

A fresh snowfall has always been for me a kind of biblical reset. There is something about the quiet; a spiritual softness that mutes my senses, immediately and completely, while resurrecting my wonder. It snowed the other day, just in time. I was walking east toward a dropbox. The package in my hand needed to be overnighted to the city for a client. The contents of the pages explained a delivery method for chemo. The particulars make my head swim, the concrete I can manage. Revised files.     Drop box.     Before 1pm.     Priority. The crunch of my feet—heel, toe and again, heel forward, toe down—tamping distraction. I stopped at a crosslight. Cars whizzed by, the bells at City Hall chimed. The light…

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Categories: Mama Sap

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Just Another Sunday

Posted on January 14, 2013

It was just a regular Sunday here. I did some laundry, stripped the beds, made a grocery list and took Ave with me to the store. As usual, the final tally was double what I intended, both in cost and time. I shrugged it off because I was having great one-on-one time with Ave and despite taking a long time I was going to be done with the tedium of Sunday chores before 3pm, which never happens. We were walking up the stairs and Sean called to me, “Did you get my text?” I had not and my shoulders slumped imagining that I was going to need to head back out for some very important something or other. I was wrong. The very important…

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Categories: Love

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