As a kid, I faithfully attended summer camp year after year. My friends and I’d pile into a 10 passenger van with a reluctant youth leader behind the wheel, all of us belting songs in a decidedly off-key loop: Alice the Camel, Do Your Ears Hang Low. We’d pass Pringles from the back to the
There was a time I didn’t answer the door. — Once, when I was pregnant with Bee, an acquaintance I’d known from church asked if she could bring dinner over after the baby was born. Do you like Greek? she’d asked. (I love Greek.) But then, the baby was born and the visitors descended and
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
A few weeks ago, I’m boiling quinoa when I look up to see Ken and Bee parade through the front door. They’re lugging a bulging leather tote of books and waving a DVD over their heads in celebration of their recent library spoils. Mom! It’s Finding Nemo! Bee says. Harmless, right? Ken winks. It’s raining,
Things feel disjointed, that’s all. I walk the dogs. I order coffee black. I grocery shop. I answer texts. I chop carrots, find the missing shoe. I order finger paints. I fall asleep. Writer/mother/wife. I wake. — Bee likes to sleep on the floor. On the (rare) days in which she naps, I’ll have laid
Did you know emotions only have a shelf life of 90 seconds? That’s it. 90 seconds. In less time than you can walk to the mailbox and back, in less time than you can clip your fingernails, in less time than you can sauté an onion, your brain has effectively rid itself of the very
This election, man. We’re crumbling, aren’t we? The tower we’ve built for ourselves – America the beautiful, America the great – is beginning to crack in the corners and really, we all know it’s not going to take much to knock the whole thing over with our heels. I’m trying to choose careful words here,
You know when you’re at brunch and the waiter talks of their artisan jam? “It’s made from hand-picked organic cherries in Michigan, this tiny little farm off 96, and we infuse it with fresh mint from our herb wall over there and really, you’re not going to believe it. It’s divine. Trust me. Would you