Now that I’m a grandmother, I find myself thinking of my mother more frequently. Though I know comparisons are irrelevant, I reminisce about what my mother did as a grandmother when my kids were babies. She lived about as far away from us then as I live from my granddaughter […]
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Reviewing Old Photographs: More Treasures, Not Much Trash
Before we moved into our current home in 2019, I did a lot of cleaning and sorting, which revealed many treasures and trash. But there were many boxes I moved from one house to the next without any review. Some of those were boxes of things from my parents, and […]
Continue readingReflecting on Anniversaries and the Days In Between
Our 46th wedding anniversary was last weekend. Number forty-six doesn’t merit much recognition, though I gave my husband a couple of Hallmark cards. We ate Thanksgiving leftovers, so I didn’t have to cook. It snowed the night before, but the weather warmed enough that no shoveling was necessary. Still, we […]
Continue readingRequiem for a Life, Through Artifacts
My husband sold his boat earlier this year, and I discovered that three boxes of my ancient belongings had survived in the storage unit where he kept his boat. When we vacated the storage unit, these boxes returned to our house. About fifteen years ago, my husband deposited these boxes, […]
Continue reading“Where’s That Baby?” Redux
Soon I will get to meet my new granddaughter. I have anticipated this moment for months. I can’t wait to get her into my arms. And yet, I also remember how it felt to have my own new baby—it seemed everyone wanted the baby, and no one wanted me anymore. […]
Continue readingWinter Park 2010: A Reflection on Life and Time
As I browsed through my digital photographs looking for something to write about, I came across a folder of pictures I took on a ski trip to Winter Park, Colorado, in 2010. The trip actually took place in late March 2010, during my daughter’s last spring break in law school. […]
Continue readingPerfect Christmases
When I think of my childhood Christmases, I think of going to my grandparents’ home in Klamath Falls, Oregon. They moved out of that house when I was six or seven, and some of my earliest Christmases were spent at my home rather than traveling to my grandparents’ house. So […]
Continue readingMy Middlebury Trash Can
When I moved onto campus at Middlebury College in the fall of 1973, I shipped a trunkful of belongings ahead of me. Then, on the plane with me before Freshman Week, I brought two suitcases, a carry-on, and a guitar case. But I didn’t bring a wastepaper can, and the […]
Continue readingNot So Random Photos: An August Trip Down Memory Lane
I’ve written many times about Pacific Grove and Carmel, California, and other venues on the Monterey Peninsula. But for decades I didn’t visit that idyllic place in my past. My grandmother moved away from Pacific Grove in the summer of 1967. My husband and I went there once or twice […]
Continue readingAnother Mother/Daughter Milestone: Buying a Wedding Dress
Now that my daughter is in her mid-thirties, I thought we had passed all the mother/daughter milestones. But apparently not. She is getting married later this summer, and she came to visit recently with the intention of taking me to help her buy a wedding dress. We spent an afternoon […]
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