The Resting Time is my Golden Hour. Every afternoon, for one hour, the children each go to their beds, and I go to the couch, or my own bed, or even the kitchen table, and read or write or talk on the phone without interruption. The boys almost never sleep, and Emma Grace sleeps about […]

1. Being given chocolate. 2. Being given fabulous meals, like grilled chicken with curry peanut sauce, or tortellini with alfredo sauce, or pork with Vietnamese sauce. 3. Napping. 4. Sleeping in. 5. Watching A&E and BBC productions of English literature that you have read or not. 6. Receiving wonderfully sympathetic and even moving cards and […]

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyondany experience,your eyes have their silence:in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose methough i have closed myself as fingers,you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose or […]

Yesterday morning at 7:23 my mother and two sons entered our bedroom. My mother carried the tray that the boys had so carefully prepared. It was breakfast in bed: coffee with half and half (because really, what good is coffee without half and half?), generous portions of orange juice (I am notoriously stingy with orange […]

I just wanted to say that, because sometimes it is.

One week ago today I took my Saturday walk with Pam and we talked about the weather. It would be a fine day, we decided, for their annual Easter party and egg hunt. Not too hot, so the chocolate wouldn’t melt inside the eggs. But not raining either, we hoped, and not cold. It would […]

For a few weeks now, we’ve heard the spring peepers in the woods some nights. I wake to the hilarity of the birds who, a month ago, were silent and perhaps weren’t even here. And now, in the mornings, the sun is spreading its light before I leave the house for my six a.m. walk. […]

It’s 10:30 at night, but you know she’s still awake. You know this because you are the mother, and mothers know these things. And you know that she took a Really Long Nap this afternoon, because she Absolutely Had To, or All Hell would Break Loose. But just in case you weren’t certain that she’s […]

on the end table, next to the sofa in the living room: an apple stem, and thirteen apple seeds. That is all that remains of (one of) the apple(s) that William ate yesterday. The kid loves apples. He asks for them like most kids ask for candy. He eats at least three a day. Granny […]

Bill had to work late again last night, and I wasn’t hungry at dinner time (remember my sandwich at ! Barnes and Noble?), so the children were eating alone together (yes, I mean that) while I was washing dishes at the kitchen sink. And, of course, we were listening to How to Dismantle an Atomic […]