The search for an ideal life.
Is 40 the age when women start turning into their mothers? Because I’ve been playing around with writing some poems lately. My mom has always loved reading and writing poetry, whereas I’ve been a little indifferent to it. As a teenager, I do remember reading a book by Billy Collins one summer and liking it. …
Our neighbors moved out suddenly the other week. A couple of retirees, Mike and Margie were the chattiest people on our block. Desperately trying to leave or get back into the house, it was easy to get trapped in a very one-sided conversation with Mike while his dog pooped on your grass. “That’s Moon, short …
The Time: Spring, 1993. The Place: A Lutheran church for our Brownie Girl Scout meeting. I’m going to be honest here, I hated this Girl Scout troop. Aside from one really dear friend, the kids and grownups all deserved a badge for being completely unbearable. Occasionally, on a cool day, my mom would sit in …
I think I’ve always looked pretty young. When I was 19, I went to a movie with a younger friend and the theater employee asked if she was my mom. Everyone always insisted that I’d appreciate this when I was older, which infuriated me at the time. Yeah, everyone’s infantilizing you NOW, but just imagine …
A friend tagged me recently in one of those “25 Random Things About Me” lists on Facebook, and I thought it could make a fun writing exercise. I feel like I’ve been experiencing a bit of writer’s block ever since I caught Covid in October. For a few weeks, it was a full-on brain fog …
Well, we made it through January! Happy February, baby! Here’s how my personal goal of embracing winter has been going: The first few weeks of January were really chore- and errand-heavy. Dentist, eye doctor, take down Christmas decorations, and general day-to-day life maintenance stuff. So, I made the decision that “THIS WEEK WE ARE REALLY …
“One berry / Two berry / Pick me a blueberry.” —Jamberry, Bruce Degen A couple of weeks ago, our grocery store was having a sale on giant containers of blueberries. Thanks to frequent readings of kids’ books like Blueberries for Sal and Jamberry, I have berries on the brain anyway. I was excited because (1) …
I’ve never really been a winter person. As a kid, the lights, magic, and sweets of the holidays all seemed to take the chill out of the air. I devoured every soup commercial and very special Christmas episode of Touched by an Angel featuring Randy Travis as if they alone held the key to Yuletide …
Well, here we are at the end of the year again! New Year’s Eve can honestly be kind of a letdown. For many, it marks the end of the holiday season and the beginning of a dark, joyless winter when you’ve resolved to join a gym. You want this last hurrah to go so well! …
“I Will Buy You a New Life” by Everclear came on the 90s radio station in our car this afternoon. I remember listening to that song as a teenager, during the summer at my grandmother’s house in Minnesota. There was one of those giant, old antique cabinet radios in one of the bedrooms there. My …
