Grief is sneaky. And it can only be kept at bay for so long. Above all else, grief wants to be felt. To be dealt with. Grief wants you to sit right there in it. Some stupidly beautiful TikTok song that Jane played for me on our way to the Little Tart for a before-school... Continue Reading →
Before the Commentary Killed the Moment
Krispy Kreme was a whim. I was ready to cocoon in my hotel room with a piece of writing that’s eluding me. Maybe, with no distractions, I could finally coax it out. I was really too full for a donut. I’d just eaten dinner, which featured thick steak fries, with a light brown crisp around... Continue Reading →
Underwater
Today has an underwater quality. Like sitting on the bottom of the pool, cross-legged, watching the prisms of light bounce around, anchored by inertia and the bubbles cascading out of your lungs that kept you stationary, pinned in this world. The burn behind my eyes reminds me of those summers, too. The delicious thought of... Continue Reading →
At Least We’re Not Writing Valentines for the Whole Class
My 12 year old sent me shopping to buy her an outfit for her Valentine’s Day dance. This child has not let me dress her since she was 18 months old. This is a rare privilege, brought to me by a weekend full of (minor) illnesses that kept us (mostly) at home snuggled on the... Continue Reading →
White Lady with the Messy Hair: Acknowledging Whiteness
Sometimes I am more aware of my whiteness than other times. It’s a point of privilege, I realize, to be able to completely forget the color of my skin. Sometimes. It’s always a privilege, but it’s only sometimes that I forget. Other times, I am hyper aware of my whiteness and the ways that it... Continue Reading →
Our Children Died: A Lament for Uvalde, for Us All
I've scrolled Facebook so much in the last 12 hours that I don't know, at first, if the kids that pop into my feed are dead now or if I'm just looking at shots of my friends' kids finishing up their school year. The dead and the living, intermingled in my feed. The same age.... Continue Reading →
Don’t Buy What They’re Selling
I peered warily down at my thighs oozing across the chair like pancake batter across a hot griddle. Gross. I glanced surreptitiously at the other girls sitting close to me. Their thighs behaved. Why did mine take up so much space? I lifted them up off the chair just a tiny bit, making them smaller.... Continue Reading →
Puppy Love & Couple Skates
My first boyfriend's name was Jon Robinson. We were 8 years old. He was cute, best I remember. And pretty nice. Nice enough to inform me that no, you couldn't get pregnant just from kissing. Apparently, I'd snuck too many episodes of Days of Our Lives, where the timeline between lots of kissing and having... Continue Reading →
Ground Control…
In the evolution of parenting, we've recently entered the tween zone. It's a strange land, filled with Caboodles, lip gloss, ill-applied blush, and an obsession with all things unicorn and glitter. It's a liminal stage. For us and our 9 (and a half) year old. There are things to be celebrated, for sure: a newfound... Continue Reading →
Dance, I Said
If I were to run smack into my sixth grade self right now, my first thought would be, "Oh, honey." And then I'd get straight to work helping me be slightly less of a dork. The problem was that I just had no clue. Other kids were a little like aliens to me. I didn't... Continue Reading →