February 2, 2013 – 9:11 pm
Before the first winter snow flies here in New Hampshire, some of us pound stakes into the ground alongside our driveways, to remind us later, after the landscape is blanketed in white, of exactly where the pavement ends and the lawn begins. Nothing fancy, just a few metal rods, perhaps with a reflector at the top, to keep the plow or the snowblower from straying off track. They are, quite literally, guideposts. As I sat holed up in my bedroom today, making notes for the talk I’ll give to a group of parents on the West Coast on Tuesday, I…
November 29, 2012 – 9:08 pm
I didn’t think it would hurt, to be rejected by a magazine. But, at age 54, I guess I should have learned that it takes a while to recover from unrequited love. Apparently, according to the editors at O, I should also have my life figured out by now. I should know exactly who I am and what my work is here on this earth. Those thorny questions about meaning and destiny? “By the time you’re 40 or 42,” said Oprah in last Sunday’s New York Times, “you should have kind of figured that out already.” Oprah is not happy…
November 20, 2012 – 6:58 pm
Tomorrow night, for the first time in months, both our boys will be home, everyone sleeping in their own beds under one roof. And on Thursday afternoon we will gather round the table at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner with the whole extended family. For well over forty years, with barely a miss, I’ve spent Thanksgiving in that very same kitchen, have eaten my dad’s grilled turkey and homemade ice cream, my mom’s pumpkin pie and peas and mashed potatoes. The cast of characters around the table has changed over time, of course. Various cousins and aunts and uncles…
November 2, 2012 – 5:55 pm
It was little more than a fleeting inconvenience here, the mighty storm that stole the homes and lives and livelihoods of so many others. Standing in my kitchen on Monday afternoon, the phone pressed to my ear, I watched as the wind lifted our storage shed up and away, and lodged it amidst some roadside trees. Steve and Henry and I put on boots and raincoats and headed out into the gale, but there wasn’t much at stake – a lawnmower, some flowerpots, bikes and gas cans and gardening tools. A neighbor stopped by and gave us a hand, and…
October 7, 2012 – 12:17 pm
I’m probably not the only person who abandons her good habits when life speeds up, or who fails to practice when practice is the only thing that might actually save me from myself. My guess is that there are others like me, who get so frazzled and overwhelmed and caught up in the stresses of events and obligations and misunderstandings that we don’t even see the plain truth staring us in the face: there is another way. A small shift in perception, a different attitude, a quieter approach. And yet, knowing I’m not alone, and that failure is part of…
