When my son Finn wants to go to the pool he will point at a swimsuit. It doesn’t have to be his swimsuit. It could be mine, or his sister’s, or even a just beach towel left by the door. Without the benefit of language typical of boys his age — 14 going on 15 — Finn still makes his wants known. And he wants to go swimming.
Read MorePersonal Essays, Reviews, & Journalism
WBUR: I'm longing to be the mother I never had
One morning early in the third year of the now times, my daughter wakes up and sits on the sofa, hair tangled, back slouched, eyes bleary. I’m already downstairs, in the kitchen, and on seeing her, offer breakfast.
Read MoreWBUR: The $50 I can never spend
On a recent deep clean to pass the hours stuck inside, I unearthed a bill in the back of my desk drawer. I turned to my husband, Jeff: “Look, here’s that $50 I can’t spend!”
I’ve had this $50 bill since 2006. Before that, it was my maternal grandfather’s. After my mom died in a freak car accident when I was three, I spent every summer at her parents’ home in Kewanee, a small town in central Illinois. My grandfather was the chief radiologist at the local hospital. Most people knew him as Dr. Binder, my grandmother called him Paul. I called him Grumpa.
Thank You, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
When Lawrence Ferlinghetti died this week at age 101, nearly one month shy of his 102nd birthday, many of my friends, even writer friends, expressed surprise on social media. I didn’t even know he was still alive! Indeed, Ferlinghetti outlived all the younger Beat writers he once published, including Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Greg Corso.
Read MoreThe Guardian: How drawing comics is helping me mentally survive lockdown
In quarantine, I’ve faced down loneliness and fear with paper and ink
Read MoreThe New York Times: When Turning 13 Is Not the Typical Rite of Passage
For my son, each birthday has been accompanied by complicated feelings, a reminder of the milestones he has not met and may never meet.
Read MoreWBUR: In This Summer Of Loss, I Watch Movies With My Daughter
The summer of 2020 will be remembered as the summer when everything was canceled -- outdoor festivals and concerts, summer camp and swimming pools.
Read MoreThe Washington Post: Mother’s Day, from a distance
The computer is open and there is Finn, sitting in a long-sleeve blue top and shorts. His shirt glows Yves Klein blue through the screen of Skype. We wave. We sing to him. But Finn is more detached during this call, I notice, more apt to look out the window.
Read MoreLit Hub: Are Children of Queer Families More Than Allies?
My 11-year-old daughter Annabel and I were stuck in rush hour traffic driving from our home in Cambridge to an event in Brookline when Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side started playing on the radio. Sitting in the front seat, with Annabel in the back, I cursed the quality of Boston driving under my breath then got lost in Lou Reed’s verses to Walk on the Wild Side, a song which I’d long ago learned by heart…
Read MoreThe Boston Globe: The taste of salt and summers past
Childhood memories of my grandmother’s house have a distinct flavor that never fades.
Read MoreRedbook: I Didn't Choose This
If you were to see me in the Target parking lot near my home in Massachusetts with my blue Subaru Outback and my two school-aged kids, you'd probably never guess that I had an unconventional upbringing...
Read MoreThe Boston Globe: An open letter to our local diner: Thank you for welcoming our autistic son
Since moving to West Cambridge almost five years ago, we’ve been coming to your diner about once every week or two, but I never explained exactly what these outings mean for my family, and it is time that I do.
Read MoreLongreads: Memories of a Singular San Francisco Girlhood
I called him Eddie Body. At four years old, language was my playground. “Eddie Body’s not anybody! Eddie Body’s not anybody!” I’d repeat, relishing the near symmetry of the sounds. Eddie Body was Dad’s new boyfriend, his first serious relationship after our move to San Francisco in 1974. There’d been different men—good-looking men, funny-looking men, almost always tall and skinny and young—that I found in Dad’s bed in the mornings. But it was different with Ed. He was the only one with whom I became close. He is the only one I can remember. We spent six months living with Eddie Body. I loved him.
Read MoreTriquarterly: Marble-heavy, a bag full of God
I was nineteen years old when I first read Sylvia Plath’s poem Daddy. I was studying, my junior year abroad, sitting on my bed in a drafty chambre de bonne in the west end of Paris, when I hungrily opened a letter from my dad and discovered, on the back, the faint photocopied poem...
Read MoreReal Simple: The First Time I Mortified My Daughter
Ours is a family that celebrates the silly and praises spontaneous dancing and singing. At dinner we’re allowed to leave the table for only two reasons: (1) to go to the bathroom or (2) to rock out if we are moved to do so.
Read MoreSlate: My Dad Dreamed of This Day
I was raised by a single, gay father in the 1970s. I wish he had lived to see the Supreme Court's decision.
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