Mothers

  The conflict happens because she’s right and she loves you. And yet, we strive against all her rightness, her great ideas, Her prodding us into things that challenge and define us.   She made memories for us, with the books she read us, The games she played, the places she took us, The worlds…

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Bared Claws

I have heard of the dance of Eagles mating.

I have seen the statue of talons out sharp;

a fierce battle and free fall – wings and bodies

tumbling over one another as they drop to earth.

Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles

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 over and over when a song came on the radio, or try to record it…

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Brains on Fire

I have read that teenagers’ brains want to learn through hunger, thirst, and desire.* This is not something they do on purpose to annoy us. They are chemically altered because of their age and the enormous amounts of growing going on in their brains. They are drawn to things that require everything of them. They…

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Poetry in Music and Dance

There is so much poetry in dance, in the way bodies sidle up to one another and barely touch and then move away, only to come back around and move together suggestively, still holding back, still mostly eyes, still only hints at what could happen if both bodies fully engaged. There is love and loss…

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We could Hug More!

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 disconnect, and block out the media, and become absorbed in my kids’ interests and the activities we can do…

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Sugar Sweet

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 Once and For All twirling all through my head. If I could nail down my belief…

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Inhabit

“At this point in his life, he hadn’t started inhabiting his work, like he did later.”

Pre-Pubescent Insanity

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 all is lost and you have no grip on reality.

Ferocious Calm

I am angry and I feel slighted and perhaps, I’m  being childish; but I want to pout and stamp my foot and behave inappropriately. At the same time, I know this is beneath me, that I can and should rise above. The issue at hand is of no consequence. I am literally upset over nothing, a minor inconvenience,…

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