A funny thing happened last weekend. I turned on my computer to check email, and there were a dozen letters from Australia, each bearing kind Happy Mother’s Day wishes from down under. There were even more messages for me on Facebook. I was puzzled at first, but then the fifth note I read explained what was going on: “Your Gift of an Ordinary Day video is going viral in Australia,” a mom of two wrote to me. Sure enough. I paid a visit to the YouTube link: 200,000 more clicks in just a couple of days — and suddenly my…
A few years ago, I packed all my child-raising books into shopping bags and delivered them to the used bookstore. It didn’t mean my mothering days were over, of course, but I figured that from here on out I should be able to manage on my own. My sons were young adults, after all, our struggles over bedtimes and screen time and green vegetables and messy rooms were already ancient history. We were forging new relationships with each other – complicated, yes, but I couldn’t imagine ever again turning to an “expert” for advice on how to get along with…
I’ve sometimes wondered if I’ll spend the rest of my life missing my sons as the little boys they used to be. Even now, though it’s been years since I reminded anyone to look both ways, the sight of a mom crossing the street hand-in-hand with a little guy with sleep-tufted hair and rolled up jeans fills my eyes with sudden, unbidden tears. Arriving at an elementary school to give a talk one morning not long ago, watching parents bending low to kiss their children good-bye, observing the sea of bobbing backpacks, the bright art on the walls, the exuberance…
You could say, we are waiting here. Waiting to find out which colleges will accept Jack for next fall. (So far, one yes, one no, one wait list.) Waiting to see what choices he’ll make and which school — after a year of working and living on his own and figuring out whether he even wants to go to college at all — will finally feel like “the one.” Waiting to see if the next round of X-rays will show further healing in his two broken vertebrae. Waiting for his pain to disappear. Waiting to find out if he’ll be…
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…
