From her car seat behind me, she said, “I want to go see Great Grandma tomorrow, I like it there.” And I told her that was such a good idea. I said we would have to go sometime soon, but tomorrow she would be having fun at Daddy’s house. She said YAY, and then added a bit of a sad awww, “But I really wanted to go to Great Grandma’s place, too…” I know, honey. I hear you. Let’s make a plan to do it soon. You just can’t be two places at once. It’s a good problem to have, EJ…so many people love you, it’s hard to fit it all in… Then she said it best, I wish there were two tomorrows. Isn’t that a sucker punch to the gut in the best possible way? I mean, kids, they know just how to say so simply what we adults have been trying […]
Lately he has been hanging out with me, just sitting there on the couch or plopping down on the floor, flat on his back, while I hang clothes in my closet. He talks and talks and talks. Mostly about Legos or Star Wars or other things that he thinks about all the time. The other night, at bedtime, he said he couldn’t get to sleep because of his busy mind. My brain tries to focus on so many things at once, he said. It won’t stop going fast from thing to thing. Oh how I know. And how I wish I could slow it down for him, this boy with his mother’s brain. But I can’t, and maybe he’ll be a writer or think quick on his feet in his work, whatever it is. Maybe he’ll think up the greatest new thing to help people, because of his ideas, the ones that never […]
Just Write, revisited. Just Write {1} We are driving along, just the two of us. I channel surf for tunes as Elsie Jane kicks and coos from her backwards position behind me. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is where I land and I sing it at the top of my lungs, windows down. Somehow she loves it when I sing. The working day is never done, but girls, they wanna have fuhunn. I pass by a house with much recycling out front. Cans and cans and bottles and bottles and cardboard boxes. All from alcohol. I think about how that used to be my end of the driveway and how it didn’t take long to add up and so I’d try to hide parts of it under cola types of things. I think about how, with the boys, I had to pump and dump a lot and worry because it is very simple: I was […]
I sent off a reply email to my friend Sarah, typing out a fast thank you (because she is always helping me) and then I said, THIS WEEK. I was referring to the fact that I will see her in just a matter of a couple of days, in San Diego at the Storyline Conference. Months ago we were like “yeah, maybe we should just go to that, together!” And we registered pretty impulsively cause that’s how we roll, and now it’s here. Today I sat for a moment thinking that maybe I’m a little nervous. But it’s Sarah, so that doesn’t make a lot of sense, while it also makes sense. You know how we used to get to know people? In person or snail mail or the phone, that was it. NO INTERNET, our kids won’t believe it! And I can remember having a pen pal and I felt like I […]
