All That I Don't Know

Last Wednesday, halfway through that terrible week, I took my son and his friend hiking. I needed to be outside, to disconnect from the news, to work my muscles and remind myself that this grief, although it felt as though it had landed on my doorstep, didn’t belong to me. Because it feels as if…

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For Boston With Love, Bad Language Included

My dad grew up in Southie. If you aren’t from Boston, aren’t from Massachusetts, that has different meaning for you. To me, it means afternoons spent at my grandmother’s house, listening to white boys wearing gold chains pass on the sidewalk outside, trying to understand what they said. It means going to the playground with…

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Boston, You're My Home

Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened. Gandolf:  So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. Boston. I love…

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The Darkest Month

I have a friend who thinks June is the darkest month. The kids are out of school, tourists crowd her tiny town, and she’d like nothing better than to curl up in bed with the air conditioner on high until September. (This is not me, I swear.) Another friend can’t stand December and all the…

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Balance

Writers these days are funny people. (Perhaps they’ve always been.) I spend hours at my computer, creating imaginary people, and then a few hours more interacting with other people who, for all I know, may well be imaginary too. (Have you seen some of the Face Book profiles out there?) It’s a life wholly of…

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Stabbed Through the Heart

This is the view from the parking lot of my children’s preschool.  It’s a magical place, where every single teacher is amazing beyond words. I hike nearby, and sometimes I’ll stop in for a little-kid  fix. I love watching the three and four-year olds tippy-toe running, their hands outstretched, confident someone will be there to…

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What to Eat, Watch, and Give This Year

The tree is up, the outside of the house is decorated, and the holiday cards are in process. Every year, December seems to go by faster and faster — the month hasn’t even started yet and I already can feel the days slipping away. I want to pay attention to every single second this year.…

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Sandy

There’s a character in my new book.  She’s wild, impetuous, the kind of woman everyone takes notice of when she walks into a room, a woman who leaves a trail of heartbreak and destruction wherever she goes.  Her name? Sandy. Yesterday, the real Sandy tried to sock my city in the eye.  She blew out…

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Head space

When I quit my job to start freelancing, lo these many years ago, I was very serious about my work space.I had a little office, and I would trundle up there each morning with my patient brown dog and sit in my seat until I had made the requisite number of phone calls or written…

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Lost

  Has anyone seen my summer? It was here just yesterday. I swear, I took good care of it. I might have taken my eyes off of it, just for a moment, to look at a sunset. I did forget to hold it tightly on the water slide, but we were going so fast. It could…

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