Faint of Heart
Working from home has equally great advantages and disadvantages. I don’t have to race into the shower, wash and blow dry my hair, and figure out what outfit to wear. Rather, I can slip into the black cotton one-piece overall I just bought from an online discount dance wear store and hit the desk. It can also get lonely. Sometimes I miss contact: the pulse of the newsroom, the “story” conferences, the chaos, getting dressed up. I’ve devised a guilty pleasure when I need a break from coaching, writing, research and generally over-cranking brain: I watch a half-hour of television. What...
Read MoreFoods for Thoughts
The kitchen in our old house was a large room with planked wooden floors and a wood-burning stove. It was hardly state-of-the-art. The regular stove was basic – four burners and one oven. The sink was stainless and shallow. The dishwasher was old, and often needed coaxing. The counters were spare except for a large center peninsula that again, was not modern – not stone and filled with drawers and cubbies – but simply a deep green Formica with an overhang that accommodated as many as seven “bar stools.” The kitchen was the hub of the house – a conference room for conversation, the...
Read MorePainting the Dream
My grandfather died in 1986. I remember him as a strong and strapping man. I believe that he was brilliant and passionate, and yet others have told me that he had a tendency towards arrogance: That was a side of him I never saw – or didn’t notice. Maybe it was the mere presence of my mother that allowed the image of my maternal grandfather to remain. Despite my grandfather’s stay in a nursing home until he died of pneumonia after years of Alzheimer’s…despite his declining mental state and increasing physical frailty, I managed to see through and past his deterioration. Until...
Read MoreThe Miracle of Jaycee Dugard
I remember the days when my children were small and my greatest fear was losing them. We’ve all had those moments as we stand on the supermarket checkout line with our child beside us, admonishing them distractedly as they pull down candies from the shelves. We turn around, prepared to take the child’s hand and leave, and our child isn’t there. The panic ripples through our bodies, lips parch, hearts pound, we grow weak with fear. We scream our child’s name in a voice so primal, it isn’t our own. When my daughter was three, I drove to pick her up at nursery school only to be told by...
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