HOW DO YOU CELEBRATE FATHER’S DAY WHEN THE KIDS ARE FAR AWAY?
DOING WHAT DAD WANTS TAKES A NEW TWIST! Both our children are far away this year, so Father’s Day won’t be about the whole family “Doing What Dad Wants.” But it most definitely won’t be a joyless day. Instead, for my husband Bob and me it will be a celebration of “Dad’s Amazing New Project” […]
EYE CONTACT/“I-CONTACT”
Internet Intimacy is New for Me When my kids were younger and I wanted to have a difficult conversation with one of them, I would wait until we were driving alone in the car. I found that it was easier for me to broach the subject when my gaze was fixed on the road, and […]
Letters home
Not long ago I came across some letters I had written home from camp. The envelopes were marked S.W.A.K. (For those who weren’t preteens back then, that stands for “Sealed With A Kiss.”) In the same shoe box were a few stilted “newsy” letters that my parents, who had no vocabulary for that kind of […]
Staring down the evil eye
My husband and I are leaving on the trip of a lifetime in early February. We are going to India for three weeks – to visit sites and spas and to make a pilgrimage to the southernmost tip of the country, where my late brother spent several transformative years. My husband is looking forward to […]
Daughters and Mothers
In late June I went to Nantucket with my mother and my children for what is probably the twentieth summer in a row. The annual pilgrimage to my mother’s time-share on that lovely island began when my kids were babies and my mother was in her prime – about the age I am now. I’m […]
What’s Next?
The further I get into this transition to the rest of my life, the more I understand how it is a process not a “giant step” from one state to another. Experiences that seemed daunting when I started – like making peace with my waist-loss – are now in the past, but new challenges that […]
Growing up together
We refer to childhood friends as “people we grew up with.” The phrase conjures kids coming over after school, giggling in my room, raiding our refrigerator, endorsing my annoyance with my little brother, knowing my parents in their prime. There is a special intimacy about that shared history, and whenever I run unto Someone I […]
The Sandwich Generation Squeeze
I’ve been traveling again – and talking to more women about what’s on our minds. The theme that has emerged recently is “The Sandwich Generation” stresses. It is a condition of our parents living longer that makes it likely that we will have, according to some estimates, as many years of parent care ahead of […]