Tonight, my son and I did our Chinese homework together. We both had similar exercises, with his characters more complex than mine, but with my repetitions more numerous than his. He corrected my pronunciation, but I didn’t mind as much as I did a few months ago because I could hear the difference between what […]
Tag: Family
Peace in the Process
Last week, my son got a D- progress report that I received via e-mail with no warning. If you know me (and/or my son) in real life, you might imagine that this was an incredibly shocking moment for me. My son rarely gets a B in his academic classes and since the beginning of this […]
Rest(oration)
I have historically been very poor at resting and allowing myself time to recover when I am ill, injured, or just not at my best. Yesterday, I ran the Surf City Half Marathon. I started the race injured. I had some nagging quad soreness that would not go away, and had trained through it (instead […]
What Do You Do?
One of my older daughters called me today. She needed to vent. This is a child (well, she’s actually an adult, and only 11 years younger than me, but she’s my child) who has been through hell and back, and now has a chronic, progressive illness that no one can figure out. She’s been told […]
Coming of Age
We made a quick trip up to the Bay Area (like, literally less than 36 hours -14 hours of driving) to celebrate the Bar Mitzvah of my nephew. A Bar Mitzvah is a wonderful, sacred, coming of age service that, as an outsider, I can’t fully understand the meaning of, but as an observer, I […]
Blogging on a Mobile Device
This morning, after a long drive up I-5, through the afternoon and evening, I am blogging, on a mobile device from a hotel room in the Bay Area, a few hours away from my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah and a long reverse trip home. This trip is a bit of a breakthrough for me, as I […]
Reflections on Christmas
Christmas time is here. I scrolled through my Facebook feed this morning and saw wonderful images of friends and family and their Christmas celebrations. It was lovely. In years past, these images spur the guilt I have of not having it all together, particularly given the proximity of the winter holidays with the end of […]
My Boy
Leave it to my son to recognize gender ambiguity in a snail (collected from our neighborhood during a dog walk to bring to school for “snail races” in science) and acknowledge it, along with ideas from his mother and father, in a 4-part name: “Sir Ma’am Sparky Swift.” This encapsulates the charm of my boy. […]
My Girl
“Mommy, I made you a rainbow, all in my favorite color (orange) and then I put a heart because I love you, Mommy. And then, see, Papa helped me write, ‘I love you, Mommy!” I made it for you” “Sweetheart, it’s beautiful! Thank you so much. Mommy is going to hang it in her office.” […]
On Meeting My Mom (Again) at 40
For my 40th birthday, I asked friends and family to help me find my mom again. If you follow this blog with any regularity or if you know me in real life, you will know that it has been almost 25 years since my mom passed away, suddenly, in a car accident. It is the […]