Posts tagged “family”

Staging Happiness

Posted on February 3, 2014

Over the weekend the girls and Sean performed in a local production of The Secret Garden. Sean had done the show twenty years ago with Youththeatre, an activity that played a central role in his childhood and that he has shared with the girls by taking them to productions in the summer. We’ve always wondered if they’d get the theatre bug, with Sean and I having met through theatre and their Papa having a career in theatre. We no longer have to wonder. They went from watching rehearsals to having a small role, to having Mickey, the director, down on the apron with them building their roles into something that involved speaking. As the weeks went by they sang the songs as they brushed…

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Categories: Me

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Fleeting Yet Indelible

Posted on December 26, 2013

Yesterday morning, during a break between stockings and presents, I slipped away to the bathroom to put in my contacts. The sun in the backyard reflected against the snow and lit up the bathroom with the most amazing light. The night before I’d fallen asleep on the couch; our cocker spaniel like a heating pad at my side. When I crept upstairs I didn’t even turn on the light as I brushed my teeth. My usual decluttering went undone. Surveying the counter—a medicine measuring cup alongside an Ariel bath throne, a letter F charm necklace, several tubes of toothpaste, a beloved tall, “straw-cup,” craft scissors, Rainbow Loom bands, hair ties, raised gem stickers, and thick rivulets of dried…toothpaste? Soap? Paint? Instinctively I reached for…

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Categories: Mama Sap

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Did you say balls?

Posted on November 27, 2013

They were shrieking and screaming with enough laughter peppered in that I knew no one was in pain. Sean was trimming his #Movember whiskers in the bathroom and I was assessing all the magazines I have subscribed to during school magazine drives, but never actually get around to reading. I was reaching for Harper’s Bazaar when I heard the unmistakable siren of laughter that means someone said or did something very naughty. I walked down the hall as the sounds of laughter and gasping for breath built. “You hit me in my balls!” “Look at her, look at her, she can’t move because of her balls.” I leaned in the doorway, “What did you just say?” Briar sat ramrod straight in the bed, her…

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Categories: Random

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Witching Hour

Posted on October 30, 2013

“What do you think the girls will remember about their childhood,” I asked Sean. We were on the couch and I’d been staring up at the wall, remembering the story behind each piece of wood. I thought about the nights I would work on it long after the girls had gone to bed, their favorite pieces painstakingly arranged for me to install. This wall has become our mark on this house and I wondered if it would stay with the girls. “The boat,” he said without hesitation. “I think they’ll remember the boat.” He stared off; I imagined he was thinking about the different memories of Lake George, some from his own childhood. Along the wall there are shelves, I looked at one with…

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Categories: Random

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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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Categories: Love

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