Posts Tagged ‘motherhood’
Maybe the Kids Will Sleep in Tomorrow
August 3, 2016
The kids are home for the summer, but my husband has remained on the same schedule under which we operate during the school year, up at 6:30 a.m., fumbling around the room in the dark, until it seems the thought of me still sleeping is just too much to bear, so he turns on the…
Read MoreThe World Beyond the Room
June 2, 2016
The most obvious analysis of Emma Donoghue’s Room, one of last year’s most heralded films, is on the basis of what it says about imagination. In the film version of the novel, five-year-old Jack is provided a means by which to live his life through images, crafts, pictures, and stories. That would not be so…
Read MoreThe Long Regretful Wait
May 19, 2016
My mother’s quavering voicemail was right: I hadn’t called in a long time. I justified my neglect with the assurance that I’d called on her birthday, I’d called on Mother’s Day, I’d made my dutiful calls even though I suspected she was mad at me. I made them and she didn’t answer. I hadn’t called…
Read MoreThe Confessions of X: An Interview with Suzanne M. Wolfe, Part 2
January 29, 2016
Continued from yesterday. Read Part 1 here. GW: One of the most interesting aspects of The Confessions of X is the way that X herself responds to Augustine’s intellectual passions, from his Manichean phase to Platonism. She’s not an intellectual but she’s no pushover and she instinctively challenges Augustine… SMW: The last thing I wanted…
Read MoreWaiting for the Blessing
December 10, 2015
On Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, my church blesses expectant families. Rejoice, rejoice, we sing, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. A whole people waiting for a savior, families who are waiting for the birth of their baby. The rite is called the Blessing of a Child in the Womb, a small…
Read MoreGoing to the Manger as She Is
December 1, 2015
I drape a towel over Nick’s head and strap it in place with a bandana. I squeeze Claire’s arms into her bent-hanger angel wings. It is the morning of the Christmas pageant, and my shepherd and my angel are ready to go. The question is: Am I? Because on this pageant morning, I don’t get…
Read MoreMaybe Tomorrow I Will be a Mystic Mom
November 23, 2015
I am outdoors in the late afternoon and sitting cross-legged on a quilt from which I can view the garden. This spot, under the shade of a large sugar maple—the setting idyllic and agrarian—should be perfect for quiet prayer. But it’s not. I think I am emerging from the haze of an anxiety that caught…
Read MoreThe Bearable Weightiness of Being
July 6, 2015
I was restless this spring, edging manic. I think my kids noticed. One Thursday I checked them out of school for an impromptu road trip.
“Isn’t this fun?” I asked. If this were a novel I’d say my eyes were glittering, but this is not fiction: I have no idea how wild-eyed I was.
Read MoreMarried, No Children
May 18, 2011
As I write this, Mother’s Day is nearly upon us. It can be a painful day for some women who are my age or older, and, like me, childless. For me, the day doesn’t arouse any emotion other than regret that once again I’ve failed to get a card for my mom. My husband and…
Read MoreSchool of the Good Shepherd
December 8, 2010
Each bright new weekday morning, I rustle the children into the car, pick up another neighborhood child, then drive across three ragged D.C. suburbs—past liquor stores, pawnshops, and storefront churches—to the crumbling eighty-year old former parochial school building that houses Christian Family Montessori School. It’s Rhode Island Avenue and busy, so parents park carefully, then…
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