My Daughter the Cat

I am going to tell you for moment about my ten-year-old daughter, my middle child – because I am deeply in love with her, and I am fairly sure that she keeps the world spinning. She has a tan, small face and tiny features like a mouse or a squirrel. There is a smattering of freckles across her nose like someone has been flinging wild oats out to the horses. Like her mama, she needs her quiet time. If she gets overwhelmed, she might really let you have it, yelling and screaming at one moment, then taking a moment alone to recollect herself and then reemerging moments later like some kind of beautiful, kind, sweet thing. A thing transformed. “Oh, hello. I love you,” she will say when she comes back to herself, even if she never left but has been...

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The Greatest of Fruits

My son, who would prefer to eat nothing but chicken nuggets and chocolate pudding, decides that his new favorite food is grapefruit, and since this one of the healthiest things he’s put in his mouth – ever – I went straight out and bought a five pound bag of ruby reds. So we’re sitting at the table mowing down this bag of grapefruit and my kids are extolling its virtues. They squeeze the fruit into their bowls and then slurp it up. My husband says, “It’s great fruit, isn’t it?” “Yes, it’s really fantastic,” I say. My son says, “I love it, but the name is weird. I mean, it’s nothing like a grape. And a grape is already a fruit.” “It’s one of life’s great mysteries,” I say. “Wait a...

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We are Mamas

I’m sitting having breakfast with some mommy friends this morning and there’s a table of 10 young men, early 20s, guzzling coffee and scarfing piles of eggs and toast and fried potatoes, just as we are doing. And one guy, at the farthest end of their table appears to be sleeping, sitting upright, but sort of slumped over at the neck, his head lolling forward near his plate. More than one of us mothers at my table notice this, but we live in a resort town, where young men such as these tend to drink Tequila or Wild Turkey or Jim Beam all night, stopping only when dawn signals that it is time for some grub. It is not all that unusual to see a guy passed out at the breakfast table. And who are we to judge? A moment later, I look up to see this guy sliding against...

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The Promise of a Vagabond

So yes I have this simple life. And I love it. Oh yes, I do. And I have to remind myself of this so often of late because I have friends who are starting off on grand, slam bam adventures and I get a little jealous – just every now and then – of their escapades. When the economy took a dive, quite a few people in my town went looking for new digs. It’s a mass exodus, really. The other day, I came across an old Girl Scout roster from two years ago and saw that, in that time, more than half of our sweet Brownie troop has moved away. One family went to Florida, where they somehow ride roller coasters just about every day. One went to go and live at grandma and grandpa’s beach home. One family is setting off this week for ports unknown, though I’m told...

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Small and saving graces

Photo by Emery_Way, on Flickr Sometimes we look for earth-shattering, far-reaching, stunning and tremendous ways to change the world. Friends are reaching out to Rwandan refugees, but I do not. Friends are running races to raise awareness for the plight of women in the Congo. But I do not. While I admire them and their ways of reaching out and spreading their love and caring and kindness into the world, this is not my way. At least not today. At least not this moment. At least not during this season of my life. For me, today, I write my small words and I raise my small kids, and I do many small things that I write about here. Things that no one (besides you, dear readers) will ever know that I do. To take an example, here is one small thing that I am about to do:...

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