Posts tagged “Love”

There You Are

Posted on April 2, 2019

Here comes a kind of post that I don’t usually do. I’m not big on birthdays and anniversaries and even less focused on lavish, public, I-love-my-spouse posts. Today is different. Sean is 43 today, nothing very remarkable about the birthday. Except that at our age, it now is remarkable to have a birthday. People get sick, men have heart attacks, breast cancer strikes moms. I woke this morning on day three of a nasty bug, he continued picking up the things I do, things I thought only I could do. Nope. He’s got them, the girls too. Life goes on, even when we fall out of our routine. I apologized for being sick, and he asked incredulously, “Why would you apologize?” I didn’t have…

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Categories: Random

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On These Days

Posted on June 7, 2016

I read yesterday that a remedy for hurt and worry is gratitude, which isn’t to say that a prayer of thanks and a walk in the woods can fix anything, but it can take the edge off for a time. Yesterday’s post and the continued onslaught of rage and incredulity are wearing me down. I’m allowing myself to focus on these days, the moments of being utterly captivated by Finley’s infatuation with the wind through the window. Being reminded of the way the air carries scents and stories and just by closing our eyes we can be transported to another place and time. The moments in a marriage when in the face of overwhelming responsibility and the seeming futility and cursedness of a project, we melt. I can…

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Categories: Random

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Until One Day…

Posted on February 15, 2016

It was 10am and the girls were camped out at the dining room table which was scattered with arts supplies and notebooks. A fire roared in the wood stove, while a heat-drunk cat sprawled decadently nearby, paws akimbo. I glanced through the window at the outdoor thermometer, it read -8°. Avery and Briar were both in fleece footie pajamas, a post-holiday impulse buy spurred by years of longing from my long-torsoed Ave. When I was packing two nights before I called Finley into the laundry room, “Honey, I can’t find your footie pjs. Do you know where they are?” “No,” she said. “Well, if you don’t help me find them, then I can’t bring them with us to Vermont.” “Ok,” she shrugged. “I don’t want you…

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Categories: Mama Sap

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Dismantling the Armor of Busy

Posted on February 25, 2015

It was December, we’d been granted an unexpected night out. My folks were visiting from the West Coast and mid afternoon my mom texted me at work, “Don’t come straight home. Spend time with your husband. Go. Get a drink. Gaze into each other’s eyes.” I thanked her and said that we would. It reminded me of those first weeks after we brought our firstborn home. I was besotted, doing nothing but nursing and watching her. My mom set a sandwich on the arm of my chair and whispered, “Save something for Sean.” Those words have come to me throughout our 12 years of marriage, particularly when the well is dry and he says, “What about us? When do we become a priority?”  …

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Categories: Marriage

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Hints of What Matters Amid the Chaos

Posted on October 22, 2014

  Time is doing that thing, that thing that reveals how fast it goes even while some days seem to last for weeks. It isn’t the back-to-school blur or a concentration of deadlines at work, though those are both real and present. It’s the toss of hair and expressiveness of Finley’s eyebrows, her declarations of, “It’s just odd!” followed by a quick scan of the room to see if we all caught how mature she is. It’s Briar slipping quietly into a private realm, emotions and Minecraft, daydreams and song lyrics. The way Avery thrashes in the night, limbs too long for her pjs and shocks of hair that when tucked behind her ear, reveal new hollows in her face. I buck against the…

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Categories: Mama Sap, Random

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