It is nearly the end of the second half of my 3-week trip in East Asia. It has been the longest I’ve been out of the United States in over 20 years. It has been a time that has been impactful in ways that I haven’t been able to fully articulate. But, perhaps the articulation […]
Tag: Family
On Children, Endings, and New Beginnings
Today, my son moved into the dorms. He is beginning Early Autumn Quarter on Monday (classes, technically on Tuesday), but moved into his dorm room today, met one of his roommates, and has officially begun a new phase of his life, as I begin a new phase of mine as his mother. It has been […]
Broken Teeth, Broken Hearts & Healing: MotherScholaring & Holding Joy
Yesterday was a long day to end a week of unlearning. When we commit to honoring our humanity and embracing joy and healing, I suppose it’s to be expected that our humanity will show up in full-force. I mean, honestly, our humanity is always showing up, but I guess I’m more attuned to it now […]
Mothering Moments
February is an emotional month. This February, particularly, it has been a metaphorical roller coaster, because of an actual roller coaster (model that my son and his physics group had to design for his physics class) and because, well my son turns 18 today. I birthed an adult. This morning, I shed some tears when […]
Legacies of love
29 years ago, my mother died unexpectedly in a car accident. A year ago, I was interviewing for a job that would be a significant turning point in my academic career and bring enormous change to my personal life. Although the moments where I can recollect my mother’s physical touch and even her voice become […]
Family, Grace, and Thanks
Today, my mother would have been 85 years old. She is eternally 56, but I often think, and always on Thanksgiving, particularly when it falls on her birthday, about how my life would be different if she were still here, how we would celebrate her, how we would celebrate with her. I feel (more) acutely […]
Space
May is a beautiful month for me. May is also a hard month for me. This year, as it has been for the last eight years, my daughter’s birthday and Mothers Day are within the same week, with the end of the academic year the following week. I am tired. I often wonder if there […]
Chosen Family
I have been thinking a lot about chosen family. Today, I saw dear friends who we co-owned a triplex with before we moved to Southern California. The time when we all lived together (they lived on the top floor and we lived on the bottom floor of a shared larger home and then we had […]
What I Learned from 9 Days with my 7 Year Old
You can learn a lot from a 7 year old in 9 days. I just returned from a 9 day trip to France (Paris, Bordeaux & small villages/ beach towns in the Bordeaux area) with my daughter. (I wrote about how going on the trip itself was already a big deal before it happened here.) […]
It’s All Coming Back to Me Now
I was 15 when I first went to Paris. It was the summer between my sophomore and junior years, on a trip with my high school French club. My brother, French teacher and his wife were among the chaperones. Aside from being the first time that I was sexually harassed (at least twice, actually, having […]