Posts tagged “NaBloPoMo”

Can’t Erase What You Believe

Posted on November 6, 2014

The girls’ preschool was downtown. I always told myself that it was great because if anything happened it would be so easy to get to them, what with it being so close. The irony being, for as close as it was, getting there on time for pick up was rarely easy. The drive to the school was always a non-stop thread of chatter—things they saw through the window, questions they had about what I was going to do while they were at school, what a song lyric on the radio meant. A few blocks from the school they would get quiet. There was a church on a corner that bore a larger-than-life Jesus Christ on the cross. We have never been to church with…

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Categories: Random

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Words to Make You Feel, Think, and Weep

Posted on November 5, 2014

I’ve been nursing a sore back, so I’ve had a bit of down time to read. As I work to spend thoughtful, focused time writing this month, it helps to read the words of others. It is fascinating to me to see the way others writers tie their words together. We each have a rhythm, favorite phrases, tendencies toward longer sentences, dropped punctuation, and everything in between. I want to share a few of the posts that took me by surprise. This first, by Maggie, was like seeing a ghost. There was an intimacy in the revelation, something Maggie is always so good at—stripping bare a moment and yet keeping something for herself. From frayed fabric to scant reserves, she paints a picture of…

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Being Fearless Doesn’t Mean That You Are Unafraid

Posted on November 4, 2014

Today was a day of voting here in the States. It feels as if as a society we have been hurtling willingly toward greater hate and strategically insurmountable divisiveness. Big words, bottom line is it feels like no one wants to hear views other than their own. I realize that this is a generalization, a generalization I want not to be the norm. I think it was in 2009 that I roomed with another blogger in Chicago at the introduction of my friend Leslie. She said that she was great. Her handle was Mommentator. I had not been particularly political online, and in reading the bio of this woman I saw that she was most decidedly political, and her politics did not match mine.…

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Categories: Random

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The Watercolor of Parenting—Tears and Twinkles

Posted on November 3, 2014

We used to say that when we went to a restaurant there was a window. It became Sean’s standard new-dad-but-getting-the-hang-of-it line. “We know that when we walk into the restaurant we have 20 minutes, 30 or 35 tops, before the wheels fall off. My goal is to always be through the door with the car seat or stroller before a single wheel drops,” he’d say proudly. He never judged the parents who missed the window, but like some sort of talent scout watching a football game in the midwest, he’d cock his head toward a table, click the side of his mouth, and say, “They’re on the edge of their window.” To this day we still watch parents with toddlers at restaurants, not to stare daggers…

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Categories: Mama Sap

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Voting, Hoping, and Taking Chances

Posted on November 2, 2014

I am quietly participating in NaBloPoMo, which is essentially a 30 day kick in the pants to publish something here daily. I am tentative, aware that I haven’t posted with that kind of frequency in some time. Looking back I realize it’s been the result of incredible richness and demands in other parts of my life. The girls have a robust schedule this fall, work has been busy, and our nesting at home has been intense and fruitful. The wood stove has a constant pile of kindling, logs, and authorized-by-the-girls homework assignment fire-starter crumples. The kitchen overflows with vegetables from the market and pickle jars carefully filled by Avery, with things like red lentils and black rice. The laundry room is…as busy as ever.…

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Categories: Me

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