Mother’s Day and Happy 16th Birthday
My son turned 16 today. And it is Mother’s Day. The kid who turned me into a mother 16 short years ago just turned 16 today. Can you stand it? … Continue reading
20 Years of Marriage (and Paddle Boarding)
Happy anniversary to me and mine*. Twenty years of wind and fog, sun and waves. Twenty years of sunset perfection and also, a lost fin.
The Choking Silence (Just Breathe)
There’s something about our days now that is familiar. It is heavy in a way and light, too. I know where all the things are but I’m tired of putting … Continue reading
Goddamn August, I Say a Little Prayer For You
I’ve been reading about writing; Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Stephen King’s On Writing, and now Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer. It’s a sort of self-imposed syllabus, otherwise called, … Continue reading
Long Time No Write
Long time no write. Actually, it’s not that I haven’t written in a long time, and certainly it’s not that I haven’t thought the thoughts, it’s just that they’re all … Continue reading
I Want More, Impossible to Ignore: On Dolores O’Riordan and Growing Up
It followed me around today as I drove my minivan to school, to the grocery store and CVS, back to school and so on, humming out of every radio and … Continue reading
I Ran Over My Daughter’s Boot (Who’s Responsible?)
I ran over my daughter’s boot this morning. Thankfully, her foot was not in it. We were two minutes late for school, two minutes for which my oldest son was … Continue reading
I’m Learning to Fly (But I Ain’t Got Wings)
“You know which one was my favorite, don’t you?” I asked my husband as we sat side by side last night catching up on Ray Donovan. We’d paused the episode … Continue reading
The Playground Disappeared
The playground suddenly disappeared. This both is and is not a metaphor. We were heading to the library, the place I would take the kids for story hours and sing … Continue reading
Love is the Tarragon
Tarragon. I had never used tarragon before working in a quaint New England sandwich and bake shop in 1994. I didn’t even know what cilantro tasted like or looked like, … Continue reading
The Art of the Lost Hour
We all grow older, grow up, get stinky, lose track of time. We remember, and then we hold tight suddenly, lamenting. There’s nothing to be done about it at all but this, this one hour outside of time, to celebrate, to mourn, to repurpose into something new that we can hang on a wall to remind us of what was.
The Christmas Card
I have always been buried by the weight of parts of things. It’s the finding the cord to hook up the printer and updating the software to work with the … Continue reading
On Grief and Farm Stands
I was picking up our share at the local farm today. It’s been a long week with a boil water ban due to a water main break. It was strange … Continue reading
Labor Day Weekend, Where Did it Go?
Today was the last day of summer, Labor Day weekend, two days away from the start of school. In the morning I headed out alone to the beach with … Continue reading
The In-Between
I stepped outside today and it was what we call nether weather. It was neither cool nor warm, windy or calm. It felt like there was no temperature, no sun, the … Continue reading
The Weightlessness of Water
I could sit underwater and watch my children swim for hours. Well, not hours. I’m no David Blaine. I can only hold my breath for about four times as long … Continue reading
Turning Six, Not To Be Missed
My baby is turning six. I know I always say this. My baby is turning four. My baby is turning five. But this time I mean it. My baby is … Continue reading
We Went to the Ocean
We went to the ocean this weekend. I was resistant. “But we’ll miss three lacrosse games and two birthday parties and a lacrosse practice and an invitation to go to … Continue reading
My Baby’s First Date
My daughter went on her first date last weekend. They went to the movies. He wore a jacket and a dress shirt. She wore a San Francisco t-shirt from Old … Continue reading
Let My Love Open the Door
I pulled up in the drop off-line today, and threw the backpacks out the driver’s side window to the waiting teacher. I’ve been working up to this moment for days. … Continue reading
Happy Jazz Handsy Valentine’s Day
My kids were talking about Valentine’s Day in the back row of the minivan. My five-year-old was beyond excited about the day. They had all been told to wear red, … Continue reading
What I Remember, There You Are
It begins like this. My alarm goes off and I get out of bed. My husband is already awake, because he is an early bird. I get out of bed, … Continue reading
Farewell Minivan: Ch-ch-ch-changes
My first car was a dusty yellow 69 VW Bug, but it should’ve been a brilliant yellow 73 Super Beetle we’d named Herbie. That’s the car my parents bought for … Continue reading
New Year’s Eve and a Child’s Soft Foot
New Year’s Eve is supposed to be a time for big picture things, for the meta, the thoughts about the resolutions about thinking, if you follow me. Except I woke … Continue reading
Elf on the Shelf Gets the Last Word
Something you might not know about me is that I’m not so into magical creatures. I mean, the Tooth Fairy forgot my kid last year (what a jerk, right?) and … Continue reading
The Big, Stupid Stuffed Panda
My seven-year-old daughter wants a stupid, stuffed panda for Christmas. Not just a stupid, stuffed panda, but a big, stupid stuffed panda, big enough to be bigger than her, for … Continue reading
A Dream About the Ocean
I had a dream about my brother, Butchie, on Friday night. We’d driven to the beach in my minivan. It was a place we’d never been before, the sort of … Continue reading
Swooping Like Birds
Sunday morning started slowly. We were in recovery. Recovery from the first full week of school and a Saturday where the kids played four different soccer games on four different fields … Continue reading
The Last Last Time
I was wringing out wet bathing suits and hanging them over the deck railing. Our front porch is about fifteen feet from the road with a lively view of the … Continue reading
The Summer of Enough
Last week my email account resent a bunch of emails with photo attachments, emails I’d sent a year ago. And my sister replied to a very back-to-school looking picture as … Continue reading
August is the Cruelest Month
This morning, as my husband walked out the front door, he reminded me that the painters were coming tomorrow and that we needed to vacate the house. They would come … Continue reading
Recreating My Childhood, One Board Game At a Time
I’ve been recreating my childhood one board game at a time. Or actually, not my whole entire childhood. Were I to try to recreate my whole entire childhood I’d need … Continue reading
Father’s Day and the White Undershirt
I woke yesterday morning to the mystical, warm smell of my husband ‘s white undershirt. I was half-asleep and he was half-asleep, and I curled up against him, my head … Continue reading
Two-Wheelers, Piano Recitals and Lost Teeth
I went for a run today. Just a week ago on my run there was still snow on the ground deep in the woods, tucked in the valleys, with a gray fog … Continue reading
Learning to Swim
I started swimming again, and it’s been a revelation. I grew up with a pool in the backyard. I have memories of swimming with my sisters at night while my … Continue reading
Melancholic Birthday Girl, Carry On
I’m a melancholic birthday girl, and it shows. I think my kids picked up on the impending doom of my birthday and my sad-sack state, because they were straight up punks for the week … Continue reading
A Dream About Love
I had a dream about my brother Butchie last night. He was wearing footy pajamas, the kind that zip up the front, all fleecy and precious. The kind my children … Continue reading
Going Home for the Funeral: The Reprise or The Rising
The smell of my uncle’s house. That was what first struck me. It smelled exactly the same as it had the last time I was there twenty-some years ago. Back … Continue reading
Going Home for the Funeral
I need to go home. There’s another funeral, and you always go to the funeral. In fact, funerals have become the only time I go home now, and it has … Continue reading
Reading (to My Children)
I love books. I love to read them. I dream about writing one someday. My shelves are covered, covered, covered with books. Because once one has acquired a book, whether … Continue reading
Taking Down the Tree
What is the soundtrack for taking down the Christmas tree? Is it my mother, almost into February, during stolen moments when we were all at school or a daycare center, … Continue reading
The Twins Turn Six (from the Basement Tapes)
Again and again this year I found myself beginning posts I never finished or finishing posts I never polished enough to post. So they’ve sat half-lost in a virtual notepad, … Continue reading
Sleeping Children, Peace, and Other Thankful Thoughts
Tim brought Mica to me last night. I was in bed. We were watching television, the president juxtaposed against Ferguson, burning cars and police in riot gear throwing tear gas, … Continue reading
Interview With My Mom, An Education
My Mom’s a talker. She can talk on and on and on. Which means I come by it honestly, anyway. And although I never expected it, I realize now that … Continue reading
The Nose, A Life in Smells
We have a smeller in the house. One would think I mean that we have someone who’s making the house smell bad, which isn’t that inaccurate. All four of my … Continue reading
One Year Blog-o-versary, 100 Years
It’s been a year in the blogosphere since I first began, and I had such high hopes. I wanted to write a one year post with that song 100 Years by … Continue reading
On Acrobats, Motherhood and Friendship
I am a circus performer. I am the tightrope walker, the fire breather (although usually only in the morning before brushing my teeth), the clown in the striped shirt doing jazz … Continue reading
Hand-Me-Downs, What We Choose to Keep
The day before school started I dug through the kids’ closet where I’ve been (haphazardly) stocking shoes and clothing to fit my children for the next ten years of their lives. … Continue reading
Found in the Fog
Last weekend was our last in Maine, or at least the last real day of summer for us. I awoke early, crept to the window and was despondent. There was nothing, … Continue reading
One Season Following Another…
The marsh grass along the path to the beach is just beginning to turn orange at the edges. It’s a subtle thing, like a gray hair at your temple, but … Continue reading
jen groeber: mama art 