I drill cork strips into the exposed studs in our cabin and hang a cross-stitched goose wearing wellies into the first. I fill the rest with nature drawings from my children, weekly composer and artist rotations, verses to keep close. A Polaroid snapped in the kitchen of our Indiana home, and I am suddenly wisftul
I stock the pantry with beans, set bowlfuls aside for creative bounty. We dip maples and oaks and sycamores into a melted-down pool of last winter’s candles, string a garland for the mantel. I launder the flannel sheets, ready the spiced cider pouches. We intend to write down the first frost on our calendar, but
Ah, December. My daughter’s Advent book says that this month’s name is derived from the Latin word decem, meaning ten, because it was originally the tenth month of the year in the calendar of Romulus. But I’ve got another theory. Could it also be because everything – everything! – in the month of December is
A noiseless patient spider, I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my soul where you stand, Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaselessly musing,
My daughter tells me over breakfast that certain butterflies die once they give birth. She points to a crayon drawing she’s made: a dead monarch falling down from the sky, little Xs where eyes could be. Sounds about right, I think as I grind the coffee beans. — The baby is 1 and a half
There’s a reason there are tea rings on my dining room table, tie-dye stains on my deck. There’s a reason Ken built a ramp to slide down the basements stairs and a rock climbing wall to reach the heights of our master bedroom. There’s a reason that, just a few months ago, we bought a
They said it would happen like this: The baby will come and you’ll never be able to imagine anything otherwise. She’ll just fit, they said. You’ll see. (They were right.) —
Here’s what we have: me, 8 months pregnant, balancing a laptop on a burgeoning belly with two snoring dogs under a pair of propped-up feet. The clock reads 3am. It is quiet, cozy, warm. Perfect conditions for sleeping – unless, of course, you are not. (I am not.)