Posts from the “Love” Category

1000 Words on Love

Posted on October 15, 2013

I picked the girls up at Nana’s the other day. Just as I got there she said, “Come here, come here, you just gotta see this. You won’t believe what the girls did. It’s just so cool.” I followed her through a little hallway and around a corner. She was bouncing with excitement. She started pointing and clapping her hand on her mouth, giggles popping out in between, “Can you believe it?” She stepped aside and gestured to the tv stand. “Amanda, they cut their hair and put them right there. They said it was us in love. Can you, can you even believe that,” her wonder at the matter of fact acceptance is still potent. She pointed back and forth for me for…

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A Hair’s Breadth

Posted on October 8, 2013

The older I get, the more I realize everything is but a hair’s breadth from this moment— peril, bliss, understanding, balance. A morning of dropped razors, unfilled toilet paper rolls, and empty coffee containers can set the tone of my entire day. Afternoons stacked with barely veiled nastiness in my inbox, back-to-back red lights on the way to the bus, and meat I forgot to defrost can leave me staggering to bedtime. The tiniest shift in my thinking and I can set the course for things happening a certain way, or at least for how I ultimately respond to things. After the experience with Finley’s unexplained skin rash and fever this summer, about which I nearly lost my mind, I would have expected last week’s…

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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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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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To the letter

Posted on June 28, 2013

Today is our ten year anniversary. We were married at 5pm, on Saturday, June 28th, 2003 at The Mansion in Rock City Falls, just outside of Saratoga Springs, NY. It was a perfect day that I keep wrapped in a halo of wonder. My grandfather at the piano, my friends and family together on the sun dappled deck, and later in the barn, beneath twinkly lights. The emotional mortar holding together the life we’ve built has changed, little bits have crumbled, while others have proven themselves to be impervious to weather. This last year opened a door, death and divorce have entered into our circle’s lexicon in a way we somehow believed we’d evade. There is a tempering to my hope, but also new…

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Categories: Love