Posts tagged “family

It all started when-

Posted on September 3, 2013

A few weeks ago we took Beso, our cocker spaniel, to a place to be boarded while we were on the Cape. The drop-off was not dissimilar to the scene in Hope Floats when the little girl stands sobbing in the street as her dad drives away. The week that we were away I struggled with the echo of Briar murmuring, “Mom, it’s like we are leaving him to be adopted. Does he know we’ll be back?” I shushed her in the moment, but as the days passed I found myself whispering, “I hope so, baby. I hope he knows.” When we went to pick him up we looked cautiously for the pig who had startled us our first time. Beso, it turns out,…

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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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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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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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Plan for Detours

Posted on April 24, 2013

The other day I was driving toward our house to meet the bus. I was coming around a bend that always gives me pause, something about it makes me brace for a child darting into the road. One night, I was coming home very late, just as I came up the hill to the bend, a massive deer loped into the road. There were no horns, but it was massive, so I always refer to it as a male in my mind. The speed limit on this road is 45, but I always go a bit slower. I took my foot off the gas as he stopped in his tracks and looked at me. A huge moon shone down on us and time seemed…

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