Finding Grateful
I feel a very unusual sensation — if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude. -Benjamin Disraeli When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. -Willie Nelson According to some of my Facebook friends, November is an unofficial month of gratitude, where each day a participating person is supposed ...
Book learning for girls
Last week a 14-year-old Pakistani girl named Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban. Her crimes, labeled “activism” by the monsters who tried to kill her and her female classmates, appears to be attending school and encouraging other girls to become educated. This week, in my home state of Wisconsin, a man ...
Letter to my fairly recent self
It’s the most glorious time of the year in Minnesota, the cusp of autumn, with bright, still-long days, a warm but no longer humid breeze in the air with the green smell of trees and flowers still in bloom. My family and I are visiting my brother and his family — his wife, toddler, newborn, ...
Expressing Motherhood show, September/October in Los Angeles
In January 2011 I had the honor of performing a personal essay I’d written in the Expressing Motherhood show in Los Angeles. I’m happy to announce that I will be performing again in the upcoming September and October Expressing Motherhood show. The Expressing Motherhood team has recently launched a blog featuring mothers and creativity, and ...
The facts of life
I sort of recall the day my mother tried to tell me about “the facts of life,” or the ones that pertained to the getting a period. She had sent away for the Modess kit of visual aids and granny maxi pads with an elastic belt that girls were supposed to wear under their gigantic ...
Fight Club of One
Last month I learned how to ski in Canada, at the same place where 12 years earlier I learned to snowboard. In those days, at 30, I suspected I was too old to learn how to do something like ski or snowboard. Still, I put on my helmet and hoped no one would guess my ...
To Live and Drive in LA
I read an article on “mindful eating” the other day in the New York Times. It’s about applying the principles of mindfulness and meditation, being in the moment while eating. I couldn’t figure out whether to laugh or cry, since I practice the exact opposite of mindful eating. This practice of mine is not ...
Free to be (crazy) you and me
This week I am starting a class and working on a deadline. So far in 2012 I’ve been meeting all my deadlines, but I don’t want to gloat lest I start missing them! Instead of a new post, I am re-posting the following entry from June 3, 2011. Thank you for reading, friends. A New ...
The Meek Squawk of the Chicken Mother
Much has been written about The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the book by Yale Law School professor Amy Chua. If you are not a parent, or are not Asian, perhaps you have not heard of it, except possibly from your friends with kids. They probably either hate the book and wish ill to ...
Swim (me) part deux
Last summer, I posted Swimmies, about my kids’ swimming despite the fact that I hate doing it myself. Nothing earth-shattering has changed between then and now. But on a recent trip with my family, I was trying to keep up the exercise routine (Run. Get sore/injured. Repeat.) when I discovered that I hate swimming slightly ...
