There’s a strange kind of joy that comes with bobby pins and cinnamon…the first things for which my children asked on this particular morning. One to pin their hair back so that despised stray curl would not obstruct their view of the cute boy two rows over in German class. And the other to savor and start their day with an unequivocal feeling of home.
Read MoreThere is one universal thing that we all do as our first act in this world. Breathe. Some of us come to it naturally as if we have waited lifetimes in the womb to fill our lungs with air; embracing this change. Others need a violent smack on the bottom to bring it about. But, regardless of how we arrive we all start the same way. We take a breath.
I am finding during these past many days, months and years under extreme pressure I have apparently forgotten how. I am at an age when many of my friends are talking about biofeedback, yoga, and meditation as if to finesse the art. I would just settle for “in” and “out”. I’m not trying to finesse anything. I’m simply trying to remember how to do it.
Read MoreTrees are something more to me.
The weeping willow that held court for my dolls at age three. The white birch in mom’s front yard too lazy to hold its bark and too apathetic to betray my summer secrets. The cork tree at Colgate University with its low-stretching, cradle-shaped branches that rocked me while I wept for four difficult years. The affable oak at old Roy’s farm where the cows still gossip and I leave my troubles.
Trees have always been something more to me. But this one is special.
Read MoreI couldn’t talk the day I was born. But, if I could, I would have said “I don’t want it.”
Truth be told, even though my mother was in charge, she didn’t want me to have it either. The only reason she gave it to me at all was to derail my father who was on a mission to name me after a gemstone. His top picks were Pearl and Opal which were a close second and third only to Ruby. Can you imagine this? In the 1970s? Good God! If I had the name Ruby on top of the plaid dresses that my mother made me wear along with my flat chest, my Dorothy Hamill hair cut and ugly shoes; Kevin McNamara would have beaten the pulp out of me for good. Curtains. And buried me in the sewage pipes back in Beech Woods.
But, mother was brilliant. While Dad went out to get a burger after I was born, my mother filled out the paperwork and expertly decided to name me after both of my grandmothers – Christine for my Dad’s mother; and Agnes for my mom’s mother. Now what exactly was he going to say to THAT?! “No! I object! How dare you name our daughter after my mother!!” Well played, Mom. Well played.
Read More
