When we became unmoored, we also got unstuck. Unmooring is unsettling. Unsticking is unsettling too, but with a frisson of excitement. Unmoored from time, but unstuck from boring routines and bad habits. Untethered from relationships, but unstuck from obligation, toxic positivity, false enthusiasm. In other words: when everything you take for granted in this life as fact, as inevitable, as required, suddenly ceases to be those things, what do you do? How do you reckon with the upheaval? What dormant opportunities might you seize? In loss, there is opportunity. Is it all just ... [READ MORE]
Jump
July 17, 2017 by 1 Comment
This morning, I woke up and I remembered I like to write. Maybe it was the journal my friend gave me yesterday. (Maybe, the journal was a hint.) Maybe it was reading a blog post my sister texted me in the night, that struck a chord. Whatever. This morning, I woke up and I remembered: Yeah. This is a thing I do. In June, I watched my daughter -- little Babygirl! almost six years old! -- slide off the side of a pontoon boat in the Pacific Ocean to swim with sea turtles. LittleMan screwed his courage to the sticking place and leapt from the deck. It never stops blowing my mind, that we ... [READ MORE]
Strange Places
January 23, 2017 by Leave a Comment
These are strange days. The rain has been endless, the news has been relentless, and the children have been so sick. Fevers and sniffles and that croaking cough that haunts our sleep. I spent all of last Wednesday night in the octopus-like grip of Babygirl as she hacked her way restlessly through the long, dark hours, the humidifier bubbling steam into the bottom bunk. I awoke after intermittent rest with a stiff neck and a child no closer to being healthy. We have been housebound, all of us together in this apartment high above the city, for what feels like weeks. I am grateful for our ... [READ MORE]
Hello, Again
January 6, 2017 by 1 Comment
Further evidence of my incredible photography skills. The sun was shining straight into the Tahoe house and the kids were watching Home Alone 2, and I was finally (finally) revisiting the blog. I was going to write about how being a parent of small children sometimes just doesn't offer many chances for reflection. And just when I was typing that, my children decided they were bored and wrestled one another off the couch, so I stopped reflecting in order to keep the peace and set up a craft station. If that's not life in a nutshell half the time, I don't know what is. Part of the problem ... [READ MORE]
Love is a Battlefield
September 19, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Babygirl does not want your help. She does not want your help with her zipper. She does not want your help pouring the milk. She didn't ask for your opinion about whether those shoes are appropriate for school. And she sure as hell doesn't want you brushing out the nest that is her hair in the morning. She wants many things: hugs, treats, your undivided attention at all times and it doesn't count if you're not watching me with both your eyeballs. But if it's help you're peddling, you'd best move along, because she's not interested. Like right now, for example: I'm typing, and ... [READ MORE]
All the Women
August 15, 2016 by Leave a Comment
I am surrounded by incredible women. My friends, my friends. They are in their early 20s and #fierce; they are approaching 40 and full of grace; they are in their mid-60s, preternaturally energetic and endlessly patient. They are single and married, raising children or choosing a different definition of family, straight and gay. They are athletes and artists, executives and teachers, therapists, stay-home moms, entrepreneurs. They live in tiny urban apartments or sprawling suburban homes. I feel sometimes like I live at the nexus of this beautiful, shining web of women who have come ... [READ MORE]
Spin. Stop.
August 3, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Driving through North Beach this morning, pondering the closure of the French-Italian bakery and what an olfactory loss that was for the neighborhood, wondering cynically what hipster cocktail cave will take its place, it occurred to me that I'm actively trying to make peace with my city. It's an old saw, how much San Francisco has changed -- is changing -- since the arrival of the Tech Set. It's not particularly new, even (hello, late '90s) but somehow the tiny basement-room ripples became penthouse-level waves, and things are shape-shifting so visibly now. I drive down streets I've ... [READ MORE]
