Posts from the “Random” Category

Share. Be Yourself.

Posted on July 15, 2018

We closed on the house on my birthday. I remember how Sean and I swam in the lake, diving down until our lungs burned and shooting back to the surface laughing. Inside, we ran our hands along the spiral staircase railing and watched the reflection of the sun off the water dancing across the ceiling. “It’s ours,” we said in shock. The house was a place in Vermont with a too dreamy-to-be-believed sleeping loft for the girls, multiple decks, and a waterfront that the girls could swim and kayak in, plus a woodstove and a firepit to feed my love of fire making year round.  It was less than 50 minutes from our house but felt like a world away. Our world. We’d been married ten…

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Saying It Out Loud

Posted on April 7, 2018

My writing has always moved in cycles, propelled by the girls’ milestones, time’s passage, working through then and now, or by the seasons in marriage. Lately, it’s been a slow cycle, in part because the girls are getting older and where before it felt like one shared story, now it is many interlaced. Even my own story, whether about aging or marriage feels like it could intrude on the girls’ life. I come to the keyboard with a new mix of awareness, there is such power in what we share and what we reveal. I genuinely believe we each get to choose our path. I’ve been blogging for close to fifteen years, many of those years in near total anonymity. I’ve watched people I know…

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Sooner

Posted on March 31, 2018

I’ve been thinking a lot about the in-betweens, whether it’s the grey between black and white, the yes behind no and never, and saying, “This is good” when the place I wanted to get to still seems miles away. As is almost always the case, I can attribute the considering to the girls and kids in general, their ability to live in a realm where it’s ok to want things, ok to imagine that anything can happen, and, most bitingly, their ability to see what we cannot. I want to take less time to relent; so much of what I resist is good for me and those around me. A couple of weeks ago I posted something on Instagram. There was something about the morning…

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Dad2.0: A Conference for Dads & a Conversation About #MeToo

Posted on February 13, 2018

A little over a month ago I received a message from Doug French about speaking on a panel at the Dad2.0 Summit in New Orleans. I was at work and found myself slipping on my readers and leaning into the monitor to see the words in the small window. “…it’s about gender relations going forward, and how men in particular can contribute by listening, etc. You’ve written a lot about it, and Asha and I thought of you when we were discussing it. If this is even a possibility at this point, could we set a time for a call?” The timing could not have been more perfect or more challenging. I’ve been stuck; not knowing how to channel all that I’ve been feeling, but…

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Imperfection isn’t Useless: Building a Movement #TimesUp #MeToo

Posted on January 8, 2018

I hadn’t planned to watch the Golden Globes. I had heard about the initiative to wear black to show solidarity and I thought it was great to see a movement, but I was dubious about the stage of an awards show being the platform. A part of it may also be that as I age it’s less magical to watch the pomp and circumstance. The young women, the older women, the hot young actors, the grizzled-and-still-deemed-hot-older-actors—it can be hard to make peace with the freedom to have work done or not have work done, to choose to be sexy or to not. I might feel sheepish watching in sweats while eating pizza. My point is activism and life both come with flaws, some cosmetic, others…

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