the beauty of an ordinary life
(Originally published a year ago, with the title, “Flight.”) When I was little, before my sister was born, I spent weeks each summer at the beach with my mother, building castles, looking for sand dollars, and chasing tiny crabs in the dark as they darted in and out of holes, trying to escape the beams … Continue reading Repeat.
You are going on a trip, and you are taking aspiration. Aspiration and bravery. Aspiration, bravery, and candor.Yes; this is a good first stop: You're going on a trip and you're taking candor. You were two or three, and it was a Saturday, and I was frantically vacuuming and picking up toys, and you were … Continue reading Something for my daughter.
(Originally posted with the title, "The Moon Is Like China," on August 23, 2014. The version below is a revision and, therefore, quite a bit different from the original.) One day, at some point in our childhood, my sister and I were riding in the car, and my sister, staring out the window, said, apropos … Continue reading Something recycled.
A neighbor stoops to pet my dog (our dog, the littlest of our three), greeting him by name. It is a cool, but not chilly, late fall afternoon, children playing in their yards, lights beginning to turn on behind windows, streets laced with dog walkers out for a pre-dinner stroll. One of the children, a … Continue reading Many happy returns.
I learned to drive in the fall of 1980, when the future tasted like a raindrop on the tip of my tongue. It was after the summer we moved from my growing-up house into one that, in my mother's words, didn't have room for my father. It was the year we packed up books, clothes, … Continue reading Independence day
Dear friends at Frye, A long time ago, around the time my first child was born, I adopted a simple, highly efficient approach to footwear: sandals from April 1 to September 30; boots from October 1 to March 31. I am a sensible, practical, predictable sort of woman in this way. Boots being a staple … Continue reading An open letter to The Frye Company.
Letter from camp, 2012From the moment we master basic locomotive skills, we humans begin to pursue our independence and separate from our parents. It is as natural and ordinary and miraculous a process as any other in the animal kingdom - which is not to say that it is easy, for either child or parent. … Continue reading Letters from camp.
What began with The Shining, released on Memorial Day weekend, ended, a week after Labor Day, with Ordinary People. In between were Caddyshack, The Blue Lagoon, Airplane!, Brubaker, Urban Cowboy and He Knows You're Alone. It was the summer of Luke and Laura, of Funkytown, Magic and Sailing. The United States led a 65-country boycott … Continue reading Summer 1980.
jenny's lark 