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 …
blog
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 …
The Last Day of May
I am sitting outside of a local deli with my husband and son. It’s the last day of May, a sunny and warm day at the end of a rainy and cold month. The sky is blue and the breeze is slight enough to lift my hair every so often. Josh complains that he’s too hot in the sun, and Adam and I look at each other and smile. It’s seventy degrees and sunny, but Josh is four-not-quiet-five and finicky in his own way. He sips his blue Gatorade and asks for us to open the umbrella at our table. Adam does …
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 …
Living the Questions
My husband and I stayed up two hours later than usual last night. We were talking about everything and nothing: the things we’ve been struggling with, how to understand and reframe it and maybe make a better way through it all. It was a hard conversation. I’ve been struggling for a while; we both have. I’ve tried writing about it but seem to get nowhere. Writing about the mess while you’re in it is a challenge. It’s easier when you see the ending and the narrative arc. You can connect the dots …