Dear Scarlett,
Everything is in terms of you now. As I watch Molly Ringwald present an Oscar, I wonder: What celebrities will inadvertently influence your style? As I watch what’s happening in Haiti, I ask: How and when do we explain this to you? When we tell you about your first year of life, when I birthed [...]
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November was a hard month for us. Because Scarlett, dear, you are a puzzle and sometimes Daddy and I don’t feel like we even have all the pieces, let alone know where to put them. But when you started crying inconsolably every day around 5:30, we knew it was time to trash the Dr. Sears [...]
Dear Scarlett,
Every day you drink my breastmilk and your such a good eater. I want to look down and say: Augustus! Save some for later! But you keep on sucking and slurping it up. It’s this sweet, warm, magic substance that has everything you need to grow—you’d think the Oompa Loompa’s had a hand in [...]
The summer of 1997, when cell phones were still novel and farmers markets were still about farmers, I spent the summer in Boulder. My internship at Time Warner Telecom was in the DTC, but I didn’t mind. There were roommates to hook up with, real hippies to discover and new words to learn. Trustafarian was [...]
We’re still in shock I think. I mean, we don’t have time to think, we just do: Dab, hold, feed, pat, soothe, change, snap, wipe. It’s all just a series of tasks. Like an old game of pin the tail on the donkey, we’re blindfolded and we keep pinning bits of this and that to [...]
Dear Scarlett,
When you rose to meet me, you looked like a little old woman and a little baby bird at the same time, an old, wild soul, all scrunched up and sweet and full of ethereal wisdom, yet completely pure. There were no tears or screams, just awe and confusion on your pinker-than-expected skin. I [...]
I’m not sure how to tell you this, but movies are kind of a big deal.
As I wiled away life during pregnancy, I couldn’t help but think of every baby reference across my history of couchtime. They’d just come to me. I’d be shuffling my belly from the bedroom to the bathroom and remember Mrs. [...]
We’ll be birthing our baby at Mountain Midwifery–at least, thats the plan. It’s a stucco building complex called Plaza de Medicos that was probably once an apartment complex. All the curve-topped cottage doors open to the outside. There’s a courtyard for fresh air and it has two stories with a balcony along the top. I [...]
When I first saw the difference in the reaction of my pregnancy by someone who has children and someone who doesn’t have children. (Month Three)
When we knew for sure, the name of our baby girl. (Month Three)
When I learned how the baby breathes amniotic fluid throughout gestation and then, through some miracle of a valve [...]
In the early days of my pregnancy, I read Loving Frank, historical fiction which details the affair between architect Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick, a feminist at the turn of the century. It was magnificent. Everything I devour. A story with some truth. Real people from the past. Womanhood. Choices. Tragedy. Bits of my [...]
Recently, when on the topic of buffets (I have no idea) with a couple friends, we learned that a friend of theirs had recently seen Mike Shanahan at Souper Salad. This news was disturbing. I’ll even call it disappointing.
Why is it that I cared? Why is it that I have such disdain for the all-American [...]
We’ve been back for over four months now. Before we left, we met with Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and asked them questions about readjustment back in the States. One girl said:
“I don’t see what the big deal is. Everything here is easy and convenient. It’s a life you’ve known for years.”
Overall, she’s right. But there [...]
Andrea: What about a vegetarian eggs benedict with tomatoes and avocados? Eh? All that protein and vitamins with some buttery fat drizzled on top?
Stomach: Are you kidding?? I HATE eggs benedict! You’re gonna have to go to the bathroom before you’re even out of the restaurant!
Andrea: Okaaayyy, let’s try a turkey sandwich with mustard on [...]
about being pregnant is that you find out and it’s like SUCH a big deal, right? You can hardly believe it and you want to tell everyone and it’s such big news and you’ve been waiting for this day and it seems like your world will never be the same and you’re right (!!!) but [...]
I was so nervous that morning. I’d even cried. Flustered by my slippery hot rollers and the client meeting which had suddenly come up and the fact that my favorite watch of all time had stopped working after seven years. Silly things, you see. But last week it had been sun glare and the absence [...]
And I repeat: It was just so hard to believe.
As one Mother I know put it, it’s a little like taking acid for the first time. (Not that I’ve ever taken acid, Mother, though if you must know, I’ve always wanted to and never had the proper chance and can now see my opportunities slipping [...]
When I met my Mother’s morning eyes, despite the fact that Christmas drama had blanketed every snow-crusted surface, I saw only a question.
When I spoke to Michael from the the passenger seat of the Rendez Vous, blind to the waves behind every wheel, my voice confirmed the unbelieveable.
When I ran down the stubby, carpeted stairs [...]
I had decided to drive home for Christmas. And once I put all those images of me stranded in a cornfield and then approached and kidnapped by Asgrow O’s Gold-logo’ed-mesh-hatted trucker in a locked drawer at the back of my head, it started to sound like the perfect idea. There would be pit-stops at interstate-side [...]
“And after and for a long time to come he’d have reason to evoke the recollection of those smiles and to reflect upon the good will which provoked them for it had power to protect and to confer honor and to strengthen resolve and it had power to heal men and to bring them to [...]
I have begun,
when I’m weary and can’t decide an answer to a bewildering question
to ask my dead friends for their opinion
and the answer is often immediate and clear.
Should I take the job? Move to the city? Should I try to conceive a child
in my middle age?
They stand [...]
When someone shows you who they are, believe them. (Oprah)
Tell me slowly and I will understand quickly. (Eat, Pray, Love)
We are all responsible for our own happiness. (My Mom)
What you put into the universe ALWAYS comes back. (Maury, Abraham, Buddhism, Life)
Don’t worry about changing the worlld. Just do something that makes you come alive. [...]
This is my new favorite song. For anyone enchanted by bluegrass, carnivals and rockabilly style, cup your ear to this:
Snaps to Thomerson for the rec.
Writhing. It’s not a word that should be used lightly. It indicates pain and suffering. But that day I saw it.
I’m certain that the idea of “snorkeling”, in most beaches across the earth, were started by some marketing genius to make tourists feel “active” after all the Coronas and lying around. So at least [...]
Life is a game to be played. Do you want to play with me? –Michael Boudreaux, December 2008
That night, we went to Cherry Creek Mall and I picked up a couple things at Z Gallerie. Boudreaux drove around while I ran my errand. When he picked me up, we called our friend, Greg, in his [...]
I noticed something when i was in London this past July.
For years, when traveling, I’d always hoped to find a face I knew. An old advertising professor in the Frankfurt airport. A kindergarten classmate on the Spanish Steps. I’d think of something clever to say, we’d chat briefly and then part, both lost again in [...]
During Holy Week in Jerusalem, I was discussing the failures and successes of the Catholic church and my difficulty in finding a new church community with our friar-to-be friend Erik one day in the Petra Hostel lobby.
“I just don’t have a lot in common with the people I find at a church,” I said.
“Why do [...]
Do you ever wonder if someday you’ll get to that point, you know. . .that one point, in life, when you’re so happy with that Cambodian silk patchwork bedspread you purchased on impulse, so pleased about how far you’ve come in your Portugese classes and how great last season’s tomatoes turned out, so confident in [...]
In Rwanda, they always open your soda bottles at the table. This proves they are not poisoning you.
In Rwanda, long muddy streams the color of my coffee were lined with Primus beer bottles. I didn’t like it.
In Rwanda, we had a beer at the Hotel des Milles Collines. Remember? There was a pool.
In Rwanda, we [...]
The other day I heard an interview with Dar Williams on NPR. Her voice sounded like that of the beatnik lover, Rosemarie Whitman, in MadMen. She talked like today was the best day of her life, the first day.
But she said something I loved:
Perspective is our reward for the the anguish we go through earlier [...]
On a subway from the center of Bursa. Playing peekabo with Boudreaux in the glass reflections of the Turkish night. When an older, soft-skinned man in the Turkish uniform–a tweed sport coat, knit black chemise and shiny dress shoe attire sat down next to my husband. He was looking for a little attention. Nodding. Maybe [...]
Months ago, on our way to the “cotton castle”, in Pamukalle, Turkey, we were beckoned inside a home by a squat women, let’s call her Helga, with chapped hands and a ruthless expression of hospitality. It was something we’d seen before.
Come, come, it said. Take off your shoes, it insisted. Have some tea, it offered. [...]
“I always thought that as I got older, I would have more people around me,” said Brenda in an old Six Feet Under episode. “But it’s just the opposite. We’re just focused more inward, get more honed into ourselves.
She’s so right.
While I certainly know more people as my rings slide down the banisters of life, [...]
Seven years ago, on a scuba diving excursion in Mexico with my family, far before my husband Boudreaux and I were even engaged, we ran into a fellow American on the boat. He said to Boudreaux:
“You’re a MOT, right?”And Boudreaux’s like: “What?”
And the guys’ like: “Member of the Tribe”
And Boudreaux’s like: “What?”
And the guy’s like: [...]
I’ve always been one of those annoying people who follow through. I call people back. I complete the course. I finish my taxes on time. In fact, discovering that the world was full of people who tended to flake was incredibly annoying. But as I learned in my business, it also meant I got credit, [...]
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