Archive for

To the letter

Posted on June 28, 2013

Today is our ten year anniversary. We were married at 5pm, on Saturday, June 28th, 2003 at The Mansion in Rock City Falls, just outside of Saratoga Springs, NY. It was a perfect day that I keep wrapped in a halo of wonder. My grandfather at the piano, my friends and family together on the sun dappled deck, and later in the barn, beneath twinkly lights. The emotional mortar holding together the life we’ve built has changed, little bits have crumbled, while others have proven themselves to be impervious to weather. This last year opened a door, death and divorce have entered into our circle’s lexicon in a way we somehow believed we’d evade. There is a tempering to my hope, but also new…

+Read more

I Went to Arianna Huffington’s House and all I Got Was This Entirely New and Satisfying Way to See Things and Order My Life

Posted on June 20, 2013

2013 is the year I’ll celebrate my 10th wedding anniversary, turn 40, and meet an early September day when all three of my daughters head off to school on the bus. Behind those milestones are things I hadn’t anticipated—closing our store, realizing that an 8 year relationship was over, and adult acne. It’s strange moving through this time of change, even more so when headlines strike like flint: Who Works Harder: Working Moms or Stay at Home Moms? Most Americans Say Kids are Better off with Stay At Home Moms Are You Leaning In Enough? Top Five Regrets of the Dying About a month ago I found myself uncomfortably tied in knots from wondering if I’d deprived the girls of something by working as…

+Read more

You Don’t Want to Come?

Posted on June 15, 2013

They’d been packing up to strike out for a backyard investigation excursion when the door slammed. Briar, home from her bike ride with Sean bellowed, “Ave, your turn.” Avery turned with a start, dropping the gear in her hand, “Sorry, gotta go.” “Wait, Ave, you don’t want to investigate with me?” Finley asked crestfallen. “Sorry, Fin, I just can’t,” she called from halfway down the stairs to the basement. Then Briar dashed through the door. “Briar, would you like to go investigating with me?” “Naw,” she waved a dismissive hand and grabbed a water bottle on her way up to her room. I was wiping the counter down as Finley’s shoulders dropped, she looked at her investigating bag, “But who will go with me?…

+Read more

Writer’s Block from Heartbreak

Posted on June 14, 2013

Life has been very charged lately. Looking through my Instagram photos I can see a thread, an echo of my emotions through the images I choose to capture. The uncertainty of an experience I did not actively choose and a path from which I could not steer away. The odd mixture of terror and strength that comes from vulnerability. Accepting that I desperately need support and discovering that I have it. Acknowledging that I need to make a plan and accept my role in having acted in a way that gave people the opportunity to hurt me. I am looking forward to the frames ahead and hoping that with them I’ll find my words again.

+Read more

The Secrets of My Athletes

Posted on June 5, 2013

I watched Finley fish the mail out of the mail box. Her face shone with triumph as she leaned her body out of the car window and strained for the mailbox. She shimmied this way and that, until she finally drew back into the car with a grunt and exclaimed, “There.” She surveyed the stack and then passed her hand between my seat and the window to deliver the mail. My stomach dropped and my jaw clenched. Serendipity had just passed a [potent message by way of my youngest and, perhaps most impressionable daughter. Two catalogs side by side, between them they represented the things that taunted and tempted me as I grew up, and the things that most frighten me about raising three daughters.…

+Read more