The first kitchen I remember is the one on Agnes Place, the house, built in 1912, where we lived from my toddler years until I started first grade. I remember five very specific things about this kitchen. The first memory is visual: The window above the sink looked out onto the back yard, where we … Continue reading The solace of my mother’s kitchen: Part 1
Nurse the baby, feed the toddler (Cheerios), pack bags, shower, dress, listen to Veggitales, drive to Calvary (look, it's a backhoe! and an excavator!), go to work, leave work at 5:55 (because Calvary Place closes at 6), feed the children, read books, bathe children, read more books, nurse the baby, fall asleep. I have a … Continue reading 15
It rained on Memorial Day, so instead of playing tennis, as I'd planned, I sat on the sofa with you, watched Trading Spaces and Nigella Bites while our son crawled on the floor and played with the red, plastic fireman's hat that he got at a Memorial Day parade and the green stretchy band that … Continue reading 17
He thought his third wife was "the one," and for a while she was. But, to be fair, so were wives one and two, as would be four (and probably five; I wouldn't know, we lost touch). "The one" ultimately had nothing to do with the wives and everything to do with him. But wife … Continue reading Farewell, Bob the elf.
The advice, you'll recall, was this: You want them when they're little, but they need you when they're big. That's from my friend Barbara, admonishing me at the time (I was 7 months pregnant with my now-17-year-old son) to find excellent child care, throw myself into high-paying work, and save the "flexible hours, work from … Continue reading A few things: October/November 2018
A few notes on writing, cooking, working, reading, from the long, hot month of May.
In the end, this is a kind of Mother's Day story. But it starts this way: When he was 16-going-on-17 my friend David, the atheist, ornithologist, environmentalist, and retired Fedex pilot, hitch-hiked from his Hudson River home to the Gaspé, where he spent the first of many summers watching birds. It was 1956, year of … Continue reading 16
In the back of her closet, behind the clothes, next to the dresser, were two shoe boxes, each of which held a pair of peau de soie-wrapped stilettos, one pair cream, the other bright kelly green, both size 7 AAAA. I'm certain about the cream colored pair, which were her wedding shoes. I'm less sure … Continue reading Matrescence.
