object of memory

we must return to where it was lost / if we want to find it again

  • catch up

    catch up

    Believe it or not, I have seven posts sitting idle in my draft folder, with a few for each month that this site has been silent. It’s a fitting metaphor for how I’ve been feeling—many thoughts but few words to express them. Those who know me in person understand that I’m not a big talker. I enjoy people and conversations, but I often hit a wall when the words suddenly stop. I think them, but they don’t come out.

    Sid returned home in May after eleven months away. The growth has been astounding—a mix of intensive work and natural maturity—and we’ve spent the past two months adjusting to being a family of four again. We left off with a ten- and thirteen-year-old. Now we have a tween and an almost fifteen-year-old, in sixth and tenth grades. That shift feels pivotal, as there’s no going back to early childhood. Young adulthood looms, which is both beautiful and frightening, leading to midnight musings about what comes next.

    (more…)

    Leave a comment

  • the climb

    the climb

    Some people traveled to warm tropical destinations this spring break, while others may have opted for skiing or international trips. We didn’t. I wouldn’t even call it a staycation, as we didn’t do much unless you count my reluctantly taking Emmett to the 9/11 Museum upon his request, which was as far removed from typical vacation material as a New Yorker who experienced it firsthand can get, but whatever.

    I tried hard to balance my feelings this week as we look towards a horizon filled with light, something that hasn’t been possible for years – Sid is coming home in May. He will return almost eleven months to the day since he left. That’s wild when you think about it. Essentially, it’s been an entire year. I’ve been clinging to this aspect of the future, this reality that doesn’t quite feel real yet, but it’s getting there, and the realness is infused with fierce maternal joy, excitement, and a lot of anxiety that comes with years of heartache. All of it is natural, and the core of it is that my baby is coming home.

    (more…)

    Leave a comment

  • unintentional poetry

    Poetry is, indeed, everywhere.

    Unintentional preschool poem:

    Numbers are letters

    but you don’t know that

    because you are sweet.

    Leave a comment

  • metal heart

    metal heart

    Ellie weeps. Something in her weekly journal entry has made her sad, but she cannot find the words to explain why. “My scooter wasn’t going in the direction I wanted it to,” she had said earlier as the class talked about their weekends, but I wonder if there is something deeper in the statement.

    She weeps intermittently through our morning project about the human body, though she pauses and joins the class in drawing the heart. As they work, I say to them softly, “Think about how your heart pumps. Think about how your heart nourishes your brain, your lungs. What shapes do you see? What movement?”

    A child lobs a loaded question at the group: “What is more important, your heart or brain?” “That depends,” I say, smiling slyly. “It really depends.” Ellie glares at her peer and says matter-of-factly, “If you don’t have a heart, you die.” My own heart pumps quickly in reaction to her words.

    (more…)

    Leave a comment

  • i run to keep things whole

    i run to keep things whole


    Once upon a time, I stood at the full-wall kitchen window in my West Village office building and watched two planes crash into towers a mile downtown. I watched debris fall and gradually realized that it was not all pieces of plane and glass. I watched those towers pancake to the ground, the vision painfully surreal to process.

    I walked the eighty blocks back to my apartment, tuned the radio to NPR, and slumped down onto the kitchen floor. An hour later, unable to sit with my grief, I threw on my sneakers and ran. Uptown and downtown, I would have looped the bridges had they not been closed. I couldn’t stop running; I needed to feel my heart beat. And with every beat, I wondered how many other hearts had stopped.

    (more…)

    Leave a comment