A few years ago, I got wind about this thing called The August Break. It was a blogging thing, a thing where you took a break from blogging for the month of August. Or, at least, a break from the writing part. You were still supposed to post a picture every day and let that picture hold space for your words. I spent the month doing just that, exhausted still from our move north and trying to figure out what blogging meant for me anyway. And I was trying to figure out what living back in New York …
personal
Gratitude, Humility, and Lying on the Floor
A few years ago, I took my kids to the Lamberton Conservatory on a Saturday afternoon in winter. It was cold and I was sick of being housebound. So, I grabbed my camera and the three of us headed to the conservatory to see some greenery and hopefully beat away some of the winter blahs. The conservatory is filled with tropical plants and lush greens in one room, and cacti and desert plants in another. The walls and ceilings are made of glass. Tiny quails scurry across the floor, and turtles and …
Questions, Wonder, and Curiosity
Last week at an end-of-the-year class party, Lily received an award from her teacher for being most inquisitive in the class. She shook her teacher’s hand with a big smile on her face, then ran over to show me. A tiny clip art detective with a giant magnifying glass was smack in the middle of the page. “This is wonderful,” I told her. I was having a moment of mommy pride. Other kids received awards for being fashionable or remembering every vacation they’ve ever been on. Some got awards for …
Wanting to Wipe the Slate Clean
I picked up the memoir Julie & Julia sometime in my first year of marriage. I remember sitting on the cranberry couch that faced the French doors that swung out from the living room of our first apartment. I held the book to my face and watched the trees on the other side of those doors sway. We hadn’t lived there long, only a few months, but my husband Adam and I were more than a thousand miles from home. One of the first things I did was get a library card. Then I read. A lot. I …
Lent and Imperfection
Lent creeps up on me every year. The other day, I walked into the grocery store and saw a sign for a sale on shrimp. Just in time for Mardi Gras, the sign read. ‘Huh,’ I thought. Then I checked the date and realized that, yes, it must be about that time. I can never remember anymore, not since we moved back north away from Mobile, Alabama, where Mardi Gras originated and where you can barely get through the streets of downtown in February because of all the parades. It was easy to remember back …