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“Mom, please?”

Posted on November 3, 2017

The times that I close may laptop or the laundry room door almost always result in something I would have kept putting off until the requests faded to nothing. A couple of weeks ago Sean decided to take us all on a bike ride. Originally it was going to be a quick loop around the neighborhood, but he suggested the bike trail. It was, as I am sure some people reading this are already surmising, an ordeal. Flat tires. Missing bike helmets. Modest interest. Broken water bottle holders. Somehow we made it. Briar stayed home and I borrowed her bike. Avery and Finley were tired about 1 mile into a 7 mile ride. Scattered leaves and pine needles made for a treacherous course, and…

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I Want To Remember This

Posted on November 2, 2017

The girls and Sean are in a production of Oliver, which opens tomorrow night. I have been in intermittent attendance, lending a hand for load-in and construction, ferrying dinner and forgotten things to rehearsal, and finally tonight to help out with make-up and quick changes. It’s strange to be there, feeling at times like a pronounced outlier but also like I am home—only the home is old memories, different faces. A different theatre and another time. I try to fade to the edges. Briar walked me through what she needed and explained to me what she’d be ok not having enough time to manage. I smiled and quietly nodded as I hooked her cap in my back pocket, set her dress shirt on my…

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Hope is Like Love, You Can’t force It

Posted on November 1, 2017

  I remember when the scent of a new super ball made me feel like I was on top of the world, or how if I pressed my face to the cracked window and inhaled the gas wafting in as the attendant filled the tank of our car, I felt intensely alive and capable. Back when the call to wrap things up came as the sun set it seemed so easy to find hope, to really feel it. Of course, back then I didn’t call it hope and I didn’t recognize how dearly I depended on those moments of being uplifted. I’ve stopped keeping track of how many weeks and months it’s been since I began living in a reality of bracing for the…

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