Things not finished, not sorted, not completed. But we're getting close. College visits, applications, decisions, deposits.....deep breath: my youngest child is about to go off into the world. "This is harder for you than when I went to college," my oldest notices. "That was hard too," I say and hug her tight. But this does... Continue Reading →

It was my seventh Bikram Yoga class. The room was heated to 105 degrees and we were about to go into “camel pose,” standing tall on the knees and bending back at the hips. “Open your chest,” I heard the instructor say. During each of the six previous classes, as sweat dripped from my body,... Continue Reading →

My children were born in Providence and we lived there until they were six and eight years old. My friends and I pushed strollers together and passed clothes from oldest to youngest as the years went by. We tried to promote kindness and tolerance when fights broke out among the children. Sometimes it felt like... Continue Reading →

I used to be a teacher so snow days were happy days because I got to spend them with my children. Usually, we'd get bundled up in all the gear, then sled or ski or play in the wide expanse of the Vermont outdoors. Then I'd bake muffins while they did art projects and we'd... Continue Reading →

I read in The Atlantic about Mommy Blogs--places where a certain kind of virtual intimacy is created with other mothers. We didn't have blogs when my kids were little. We had the "baby park" in Providence, an urban land of wild toddlers enclosed by a 19th century gate--no escapes. Most days we were five mothers,... Continue Reading →

photo from the Ethnographic Museum, Ljubljana below are blogposts from my Fulbright year in Slovenia

It was inevitable, this love. I could have predicted it. I saw it out there in the sea four years ago when I first came to Slovenia. It was the kind of wave that builds slowly, takes its time. You aren't sure what its disposition will be when it finally gets to shore--a potent crash... Continue Reading →

In Celje, we climbed the stairs of the arsenal--walls 3 meters deep. We stood at the top and looked across at the castle, where Veronika somebody and Fredrick somebody did something something. My friends told me the story of star-crossed lovers, but I couldn't concentrate. I was thinking about what it meant to stand in... Continue Reading →

When I was in Slovenia, one of the most important lessons I learned from the community of writers I spent time with had to do with the concept of anonymity. When you are anonymous, you can be whoever you want to be. When you are anonymous, you can create in your own way. You owe... Continue Reading →

After I went to Prague last month, I began writing prose poems like crazy, inspired by some intangible element I encountered there. But I wanted to write a blog post too. "I want to write a blog post about our trip to Prague," I said to my friend from the Slovenian Literary Council as we sat... Continue Reading →