The past 3 years have been witness to a slow forgetting of who I am. Or maybe more accurately, who I wanted to be, and what I knew about how to get there. I used to write, here, about the stories we tell ourselves. How our narrative shapes our experience […]
Read Morestory of my life
Thoughts on Marriage, sixteen years in.
2000 When Aaron asked me to marry him, he did it three times. (I wrote about the first time here.) He says he wanted to give me lots of opportunities to back out. The third time came after a period where I kept making plans for the next year, assuming […]
Read MoreMy Dad’s Example
When I was younger I went to one of those church leadership types of schools that had no grades and was basically a series of week long seminars. There were people of all ages, from many different parts of the world, and we lived in a motel near the church, […]
Read MoreGrace, never in short supply.
Well, we moved out of our house last week. And by we I mean the kids and I, and a ton of amazing friends and family, packed up our stuff and moved it to storage or donation bins over the course of 2 or 3 weeks and then cleaned up […]
Read MoreMy Surprise Indian Baby Shower
A few weeks ago I went up to L.A. to help Brenda with Bug’s Black Kitty birthday party, and to make good on a promise to stay longer the next time I was in town. At the same time, my friend Mamatha, who used to be a neighbor when we […]
Read MoreWhen my heart is in retreat.
I let the tears flow, under the cover of darkness, while I lay on the girl’s bed listening to them pray. Aaron’s arms wrapped tight around me as we listened, as if he could feel the tears I wanted no one to see. I let them flow for distances that […]
Read MoreGrace wins
She describes the scene to me over the phone and in my minds eye I can see it, the gleeful, almost boyish way he darts forward, envelope in hand, and the church foyer, where they both still attend, decades later, studiously avoiding actually talking or looking at each other. But […]
Read MoreIf only…
I lost a paycheck, the one dated for January 1st that he handed me, along with a bunch of receipts as I drove him to the train station a week and a half ago. Sometimes it’s the little/big things that make you feel like a failure. The person who needs […]
Read MoreAdornment
All morning, whenever I sit still for her, Little is making me a princess. She inserts hair pins at random, and brushes and pulls. Bangles and bracelets pile up on my wrists, necklaces stack up under my chin.”You look so beautiful mommy”, she says. “You have to keep your princess […]
Read MoreThe Horrible Weight of Freedom
photo by aparejador– Used under CC licence Sometimes when I’m hurtling down the freeway at 70 miles an hour, all 4 children tucked into seats in the back and the road curves slightly and I feel the tug of inertia against the change in direction I wonder at the fact […]
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