What have we been up to, you ask? This. Becoming grown-ups, of both the 4-year-old variety and the 34-year-old one. Trying not to yell at each other. Eating sweet potatoes and kale. Vet appointments, Squinkie towers, reading lessons. Nothing and everything. — Our days have been syrup slow, stretching and sticking into a clump of
Adoption paperwork gets its own shelf. // George gets a haircut. Bernie, not pictured, feeling shorn scorn. // Ken gets a bandaged knee after a large golden doodle runs broadside into his ACL. (Wishing I could’ve seen that, too.) The aftermath swelling and purple topography not stopping him from measuring the deck for a guest-house-slash-cigar-room-slash-how-many-man-rooms-doest-thou-need?
“I am what I am. To look for reasons is besides the point.” Joan Didion wrote this. — Still, we find ourselves continually looking for reasons. We search and peer and squint, pointing our finger at just one more circumstance, one more habit, one more practice that we could – should? – change in order
What’d you learn in Sunday school today? I ask her. We’re in the entryway gathering shoes, stuffing a tote with bug spray, hats, sunglasses. We’re off to the pool. I learned that when someone is sad, you don’t run away. You hug each other, she says, slipping on Crocs. That’s a great thing to learn,
A journal entry from last month: I’ve felt oh so brain-dead lately. There will be bouts of lucidness, sure, but mostly, I’m over here puttering around the sink, taking out the trash, avoiding cooking, thinking of 500 more ways I can justify breakfast-for-dinner again. What is it? I’m not sure. It’s just a little cloudy
There’s a 4-year-old in my house. It’s an odd thing. She climbs counters to fill her water glass, peels pistachios on her own. Yesterday, I caught her washing her hands unprompted after a bout with sidewalk chalk and I thought, Oh. This is what they were talking about. They. The women who pull you aside
As a kid, I was a frequent journaler. For birthdays or at the height of the school year, I’d receive fresh new stacks of composition notebooks, ready to be scrawled upon in childish loops. They were my favorite things. The possibility, the hope, the faith of discovering something new via the written word. A hundred
Well, really, it was a true treat to chat with Brooke McAlary on her podcast, Slow Your Home. Listen, I’m far from a podcaster, but every now and then – on solo road trips or while mowing the lawn – I’ll plug in for a listen. Brooke’s is a good one – she’s kind, purely