Category Archives: Gratitude

Different Cheese, Same Position: A Wildly Self-Indulgent Post

Gratitude, Under 750, Writing

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Monday was my birthday, so it took on a little more weight. I started the day as I do most days, forcing myself to wrestle with that Mary Oliver line.

For a while now, I’ve worked on carving out havens in my life. I try to fill my havens with beautiful sounds and words and things to gaze upon and hold dear. Fill them with faces that smile and faces that cry, too, as needed. Fill them with people who are an honor to stand with, curl up next to, double over in laughter with, or log in and write with. People who will resist being grammar assholes over that last sentence.

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Homeward Bound Demented Demon Cheerleaders – July 2020 Month in Review

Gratitude, HerStories Project, McSweeney's, Month in Review, Pandemic, Parenting, Publications, Recommendations, Surviving Summer Funtimes, Writing, Writing process, Writing the first book

It’s a few days late for this month in review, but what does time even mean anymore? July is the weekend of summer. Even now, especially now, July feels etched in my memory both dabbed in watercolor, hazy and sprawling and drawn with Sharpie, angular and indelible.

July was a time of online camps for my kids, and of trying to find outdoor activities that don’t give me the heebie-jeebies or put me on high alert. It was a time for creative celebrations of July 4, long leisurely meals on the deck, and regularly going out to watch the sunset in all its glory. These all sound a lot better right now than they actually were at the time.

Like many of you, my greatest preoccupation in July was in making difficult decisions about the kids returning to school, and supporting the same decisions as they are made, wrenchingly and with absolutely no sense of ease, by my friends for their own children and/or for their own careers.

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