Writing, living, and healing in the PNW
A writer friend of mine has been talking a lot on social media about the emotional labor of motherhood. Recently, she added an essay to her website as a culmination of her ideas and how she plans to tackle this heavy burden. I mostly agree with her points, and on a few points I disagree….
What I love about Christmas, what I have always seen as the real lesson of Christmas, is that wishes come true. Christmas allows us to hope for something, sometimes it’s rollerblades or a Playstation (I was twelve okay?) and other times it’s peace and joy. Christmas, for me, has always been about possibilities. I could…
We went into San Francisco today, watched a play at the Children’s Creativity Museum, had lunch at the Metreon, took a picture with Santa and bought some ornaments in Santa Land inside the Macy’s on Union Square, and finished our night off watching ice skaters in Union Square. I want to talk more in depth…
When things get really hard, at home because I am overwhelmed, at work because I feel disenchanted, or politically because I feel absolutely hopeless, I remember to put things into perspective. Personal, professional, and political perspective gives me hope. I remember that if I feel this way, someone else must. I am not, after all,…
Have you ever run a marathon? Even a 5K? Have you ever moved your entire household? Built a business from the ground up? Had a baby? Made it through infancy with your child, breastfeeding the whole time? When the adrenaline runs out after mountains of hard work, it is as if a wave of exhaustion…
Remembering that the kids are the heroes is, today, the only thing that has returned hope to my weary soul. I am tired. The tiredness I feel goes deep down into my bones. At my core I am tired. A week of finals tutoring always does this to me. It is especially difficult in December…
Every single finals week for the past five years, Celaya, an already emotional child, becomes high strung and irrational. Her eyes well up with tears, her voice begins to crack, and her head will hang down at the unlikeliest of slights. I know quite well that I am raising an empath. I have seen her…
I slammed the sharp side of a knife into the side of my thumb today, alone with my daughters, right before nap time. And I faint at the sight of my own blood running from my own wound. Fortunately, I have a rock solid village. I have found that when I am in trouble, regardless…
I can come home, as I did last night, after an eleven hour shift of standing on my feet and talking to kids about history and government, and write a thousand word essay. I can finish an eleven hour shift for the second day in a row, as I did tonight, still full of energy,…
A solid educational system should include teaching kids critical thinking skills. Educated kids should be challenging authority. Well educated kids would question everything. Everything. Well educated kids would be pissed, furious at what the grown ups in the room are doing to the country they will inherit. Part of my mission in life, in my…