When your dad’s a photographer/filmmaker, you’re bound to pick up an interest sooner or later. It’s in the air, a synergy of moments and movements, of creating and curating, of noticing, of stillness, of shhhhh. The edit. — Can I have my own camera? she asks. Someday, I say, and I find myself asking Ken
I’m never gonna bite my nails again, Bee says to me over pistachios. I want to channel my mother, to say Never say never!, to offer a teachable lesson, but I choose to crack another shell instead. Yeah? I say. Yeah, she says. — I’ve been thinking about it, I guess. I’ve been thinking about
She: Collecting ants. Digging for worms. Riding loops on her balance bike. Reading her first sentences. Fighting with Bernie. Asking for Band-Aids, asking to visit Grandma, asking for a sibling. Wishing for the moon. He: Planning a renovation project for fun (I cannot relate to this man’s level of energy). Listening to 70’s on high
A few years ago, I apologized to a chair. I was walking through the living room with a basket-ful of baby toys/blankets to clean up at day’s end and I tripped over the side of our ottoman, knocking into the armchair and sending it into the wall. Gah! Sorry, I muttered under my breath, re-positioning
Well, here’s a question I’m asked near-weekly: How do you navigate the balance between your child’s privacy and sharing your perspective of motherhood? And how do I? How should we? What about the kids? It’s my favorite question. I love it for a slew of reasons. I love it because we’re being mindful. I love
I have a short list of things I wish I’d done in my 20’s (respected my more-amazing-than-they-are-now thighs, interviewed a slew of grandparents, backpacked through Europe). It’s ridiculous, really, because I couldn’t possibly have mustered the energy to do any of them. What I wanted to do in my 20’s was what I actually did
When Bee was a baby, I’d sit down during her naps and write long-winded letters to her: personality peeks, successful milestones, my own parenting fears/doubts/triumphs. It was a beautiful practice, and I always imagined bundling them up to offer her on the day she’d perhaps decide to become a parent, too. (Some are here, if
Ken and I met in college. We’d both been selected for a semester-long project that all-too-closely resembled The Real World in those days: 15 students were filmed as we worked/napped/ate together in a towering mansion off campus producing and directing three documentaries for PBS. There were fights and tears and new love, and I still