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From Two Lines to Blurred Lines

Posted on August 30, 2013

I was sitting in a booth at one of the restaurants near our office, as I waited for people to arrive. It was the third meeting of the day, following an equally ambitiously booked schedule the day before. I looked around, admiring the massive beams overhead and listening to the murmurs and clinking glass. The upholstery on the seat was cool against my back and the dim lighting was a welcome relief from the bright sun. My hands toyed with my phone and then out of nowhere it hit me. Eight days. That’s all that was left, just eight days of having a child not in elementary school. I’d known it before, but as I sat waiting to do my work thing tears pounded…

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Categories: Love

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Forever in a Week

Posted on August 25, 2013

I’ve been quiet here. We spent a week on the Cape with my parents and sister. We rented a house with space enough for all of us (3 bathrooms & an outdoor shower!) and were close enough to the beach that the hauling of gear was not so strenuous as to dissuade us from beaching it up. Another year of swim lessons meant that the girls were confident and strong in the water. We brought our tech things, but filled our time with sand and waves and the kinds of things that make everything else seem low tech and artificial. It was, in a word, perfect. I need to work through some of what happened, the gentle, but discernible shift in our soon-to-be-4th grader, the…

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Categories: Random

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Separation Anxiety

Posted on August 9, 2013

The girls have been struggling with a kind of separation anxiety lately. There have been more than 5 announcements of separations/divorce from couples they know over the last year. When it first began it was easy enough to gently explain that sometimes, like with being sisters, you need to get a little space or take a break. They would nod softly, ask if Sean and I were ok, and then move on to the next thing. I was hanging out with Finley one day and she said, “Mom, do I have a step-mom?” I shook my head, looked down at her, and said, “What, babe?” She stopped walking, turned to me, and repeated, “Do I have a stepmom?” I knelt down and said, “No,…

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Categories: Love

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Signals Abound

Posted on August 8, 2013

Someone once told me that there are natural cycles in life, much like the seasons, you go through periods of birth, growth, stagnation, and death. I use that to soothe me sometimes, “Ok, this is just a stage of dormancy, beyond this will be something else.” We all do that, I think. We try to put reason to the things that happen, the incomprehensible hurts and challenges, not so much with the blessings. Our experience earlier this year defied all that, I simply tried to get myself through it. I clung to the phone as my mom said gently, “You just have to get through, honey. You just get through this. You will.” I nodded silently, I wept, I raged, and then, without fanfare…

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Categories: Me

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Cartwheeling into Fall

Posted on August 6, 2013

Cartwheeling into fall as another summer winds down, I feel profound gratitude for all the year has given me. This particular year has been a challenge, but the way the endless childhood of summer meets the vibrant promise of autumn, I can only celebrate. This time of year has always been a beautiful blank slate for me, a promise, or maybe a subtle, “It gets better,” from the universe.” My surprise at it reminds me of the buoyancy of hope I had as a kid—still have! I cannot imagine a better spiritual reset. Autumn really does arrive emphatically each year, the sharp hooks of summer are turned and released, with the days changing in every way. Air that yesterday felt thick and oppressive, today is cool,…

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Categories: Mama Sap

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