Comforting things
Spring in New England
New Englanders are a reserved bunch. My sister-in-law down South moved to a new home at the same time I moved to where I live now. Within a week, she had five pies on her doorstep. Here, it took me three months to meet my first neighbor. Which is why spring in New England is…
Read MoreNaming of Parts — Odds Are
I was going to link to this poem today — it is one of my favorites and I try to read it every spring. But it is gray and rainy here, so I thought we needed something more upbeat. In my family, I am notorious for becoming infatuated with a song and playing it obsessively,…
Read MoreOh, Tuesday, How Do You Appear So Quickly?
So yesterday was a holiday here in the states. Which means my children had the day off. They are mostly very good at entertaining me — they build snowmen, they make up crazy dances, they try and explain their electronic games to me — the upshot of which is that I have a hard time…
Read MoreI Have News For You
I have news for you (9th century Irish) I have news for you: The stag bells, winter snows, summer has gone Wind high and cold, the sun low, short its course The sea running high. Deep red the bracken; its shape is lost; The wild goose has raised its accustomed cry, cold has seized the…
Read MoreTis the Season to Overdecorate
When I was a little girl, it wasn’t Christmas until my mother dragged up the nativity music box from the basement. It was a big plastic replica of the manger scene, complete with cow. When you wound the key in the back it played Silent Night, and it smelled like a cross between a new…
Read MoreI Did Not Cry
Today was the first day of school, and it’s tradition for me to drop off the kids and then bawl my eyes out. Three years ago, when my son transitioned from kindergarten to first grade, I didn’t even make it out of the parking lot. The second grade teacher on parent duty had to pat…
Read MoreSee you later, alligator
There’s a saying I keep on my bulletin board, the place where all the schoolwork fit for display is hung. It says “When you’re a parent, the days pass slowly, but the years fly by.” I’m not a ‘quality time’ parent. I’m in it for the details, not the days at Disney World (although those…
Read MorePromise
It’s spring in New England, at least for a little while. Summer vacation is right around the corner. I have a lovely craft post all planned — you’re really going to like it — but between baseball and soccer, baseball and recitals, baseball and concerts and more baseball, I haven’t actually written it yet. (Also,…
Read MoreAdjust Your Attitude
The news has been so bleak this year — tragedy after tragedy. It can make you wish for a redo, a chance to go back to December 31st and live it all again with the foresight and strength to make everything better. But that only works in fiction. In real life, the gray cloud of…
Read MoreHope
It is spring in New England, that brief heart beat of a season that lives between freezing cold and scorching heat. When pink petals fall from the sky like snow. Miracles pop up from what was frozen ground only weeks ago. And for a single shining moment, anything is possible.
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