The Night Sky

This week, as I walked the dog through my suburban neighborhood, I gazed up into the night sky to what seemed like an infinite number of stars spread out in haphazard fashion. It was as if someone took a large container, shook it, and twirled around and around peppering the heavens with glittering, wondrous luminosity. I imagined Jackson Pollock filling his paintbrush with yellow stars, and frenetically splattering--the sky his empty canvas. I was delighted at first. I recalled moments of first love, wet grass under tippy toes, on a humid July night. I had glanced up into the same night sky filled with hope and longing for the future, staring into the eyes of a would-be soul mate who would never play such a role.

How To Have A Happy 1980's 4th of July

For those of us who grew up in the 1980’s the 4^th of July was the event of the summer. This year show your family what the best summer holiday was like back in the day.

The Little Girl Who Couldn't Ride

And the little girl believes in the warmth of the sun as she whispers and sings in a raspy and broken voice. The words, those she thinks to be correct, are all wrong. She sings anyway. Her notes rise against the wind, carried high up and away like a balloon she remembered from another summer. She had watched it with wonder until she’d realized what she’d lost, and then she cried until her father promised her a new one.

The Pretty Girl

“Am I pretty?” she asked as she stared into the full-length closet mirror. A box of clothes waiting to be unpacked or shipped off to Goodwill, another bit of clutter from her childhood, dominated the closet. Later, she will fall asleep on the shirts and pants they have all outgrown. 

the seven emotional stages of christmas card picture taking aka why the hell are we doing this again?

It is that time again--the time when I attempt to capture all four of my children looking happy and festive, coordinated and cordial--it is time for the annual taking of the Christmas card picture. The three most frequent questions I get when I tell people this are: 

1. Do you have someone take the photos? 
No, I answer which leads to the second question...

Incarceration & Childhood: 5 Alarming Similarities

Recently I watched an old episode of Scared Straight. On the show parents send their out of control children to live amongst prisoners so they will get their shit straight before they actually end up in real prison. While watching I realized three things:

Ghosts

As I walk through my home, the one I make with my children, there are ghosts everywhere--reminders of the person I used to be. My grandmother's dining room table, bought when I was in eighth grade, just before Christmas, was inherited after her death. The children use it to color pictures and draw worlds culled from their imaginations. The chairs, already reupholstered once, wear the various stains a life with children dictates, and the wood is wearing down and uneven.