Writing and Driving and Life E. L. Doctorow once said that “writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” This ...
Then he said, “I sent a message out to the friend group that I’m inviting a new kid to eat lunch with us tomorrow. One of the friends responded, ‘Everybody be nice. Make sure he feels included. Don’t ...
I love how much art and music envelop us at every turn, and how the boys have learned to channel their own feelings through art and music to take the edge off of some of those overpowering emotions. T...
The image of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Germany (cover photo) is a place of contemplation, a place of remembrance and warning. It is close to the Brandenburg Gate in the he...
For most of us, there is only the unattended Moment, the moment in and out of time, The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight, The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning Or the waterfall, ...
My mood is always more settled, almost nestled in and snug and happy, when I am tending to the needs of my soul. ...
I’ll try something new and sit back and enjoy the view. Because in this case, this IS my circus, and these ARE my monkeys, and they are a rollicking good time!...
And it dawns on me. The lesson. These things happen sometimes when something someone says intrigues me so, that I want to ponder it, mull it over, hold it in my hand and carry it like a talisman until...
It took work on my part to shed some layers of negativity and remember my somewhat bohemian wildness and happiness, my inner childishness, to allow myself to look silly in front of my kids....
We talked about the power of nature to heal our souls, to refresh them, and cleanse them from the dust of every day life. ...
My 13yo son asked me a question last night. He turned to me and asked, "What does it mean to be a hero? Do you have to save someone's life to be a hero?"...
Do you listen intently to the words of songs your kids listen to - the stations, the kinds of music they like? ...
Always the lists. Give me too much free time between calls at work, and a fairly slow day with no nearby neighbors to visit with, and I used pages and pages of scratch paper to make lists for the New ...
par·a·dox noun \ˈper-ə-ˌdäks, ˈpa-rə-\ : something (such as a situation) that is made up of two opposite things and that seems impossible but is actually true or possible Ben went through a Phantom of...
I have gotten out of the habit of writing, and my world is suffering. The walls start closing in on me when my creativity is on hiatus. When I am drawn like a moth to bad news, and the marching feet o...
This morning, I read Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and my whole spirit calmed down. He lived and was martyred during one of the most awful periods for the church. And yet, his words are like a balm and ...
My boys and I see pictures in the sky. We see big, bold, ridiculous, pictures sometimes, and we laugh and point. This is beginner imagination building that we have been doing since they were tiny. Now...
Last night at dinner, we got into a conversation about music lyrics, and my husband and I were both telling stories of growing up in a time when we had to guess at half the lyrics. We had to listen ov...
Another bad thing in a world of bad things. I have not become numb, that is not what has happened. I crumble with each new attack, with each new assault – foreign or domestic. And then I disconn...
It seems I have been struggling under a delusion that if I could just get my house organized Once and For All, everything would stay put. But it is more insipid than that – there is a strand of ...
"At this point in his life, he hadn't started inhabiting his work, like he did later."...
I wish anyone had been able to explain these changes to me as a young person. I just thought I was crazy. It's all perfectly normal. It's absolutely completely normal to hit pre-puberty and feel like ...
My husband and I were solving all the problems of the world this morning over coffee, and again, the discussion of violence in our nation was at the forefront of our thoughts. We were acknowled...
Because Ben and I are both artists, and experience a large range of emotions, we’ve had to learn about anger and how to handle it, manage it, subdue it, understand it and live with it. We...
This was put together originally by Ben and me as a Powerpoint Presentation for his Elementary School Talent Show during the last week of his Fifth Grade Year. I was to voice the narrative, and then t...
