MotherMorphosis

Imagine the Air Jordan logo. Now imagine it rotated 90 degrees to the right. That was me standing in front of the blackberry bush, except I wasn’t doing anything with a basketball. I was reaching to pick berries from a cluster on an out-of-the-way branch, bracing myself against the barbs that threatened to disrupt my almost-precarious balance, lest I drop the container of already-picked berries that I held in my other outstretched hand. The sweet smell of the leaves and grasses and marshy foliage reminded me of picking blackberries during my childhood. None of my boys wanted to go blackberry picking with me because “no offense, mom, but It’s kind of a girl thing,” so after I dropped my younger two off at camp, I hit the berry patch. I was alone with my thoughts. I’d left my phone in the car, so I wasn’t distracted by any of the beeping, jingling or pinging notifications that represented my personal sliver of the 15 petabytes of new information that is created daily, worldwide, accordin...

It was silent in the car during most of the 25-minute drive to my son’s out-of-town high school for freshman orientation. He was reading a book that he was supposed to have finished during the summer, “but I don’t really have to have it done until Friday, mom. That’s the first real day of school.” I had told him he’d need to make significant progress on the book or I wouldn’t feel good about letting him go to a pool party that night (with local friends who didn’t start school for another week). I did not repeat the admonition about being unprepared for your first day of high school that I had delivered periodically during the summer – it had become clear to me that there are some lessons he is going to have to learn for himself, regardless of how painful or humbling they might be. I’d had my “first day of high school” at the parent orientation two evenings prior. It was a little daunting to descend into the gymnasium among hundreds of other people: I only saw one person I recognized (...

I don't think my dog liked my coffee breath this morning...or maybe he just didn't like me breathing on him, or my hair tickling his nose. That is why he moved his paw over his nose after I plopped down next to him on the bed.  He didn't want to get up this morning (neither did I, really. I had checked my work email yesterday and knew what was in store after being out of the office for a week.) I laughed at the idea that I offended him. He is usually the stinky offensive "dirty dog." He digs, roots in mud puddles, rolls around in things, and sticks his nose in all sorts of disgusting places. I don't let him lick me and he's supposed to stay on "the dog spot" on the bed (which he usually does not.) He just had a bath at the doggie hotel during his vacation so his whites are whiter than usual, but to me, he still has dog breath. To each his own , I thought. It reminded me of a conversation I had with my youngest at an amusement park. We brought one...

Yesterday I was talking with someone about facebook and my love-hate relationship with it. She's not on facebook and had the impression that it was just a bunch of people's opinions. I told her, "Oh, no -- there's news, too..." (then I realized that is ridiculous because "news" is oftentimes opinionated, but for the purpose of that conversation, I didn't go there.) I told her I follow newspapers and magazines and company websites. She told me her daughter uses facebook as a private community just for her friends. I started to tell her that purpose was achievable by adjusting your settings, but stopped. It was irrelevant. I imagined what it would be like if I was not on facebook. Would I read more books, magazines, newspapers? Would I send private messages another way? I have one good friend who I can only communicate with on facebook messenger or by calling (but her voicemail is always full). Our phones don't talk to each other any more since I s...

I have been toying with the idea of writing a "good news" blog (and limiting my facebook activity). I guess that's two ideas...that go hand in hand, since I publish my blog to facebook. The thing about facebook is, there is a lot of negative stuff that shows up in my newsfeed. I don't know why. I don't "like" negative stuff. But I do like things like pitbulls, so I wind up getting a lot of news about pitbulls, which is often bad. For example. I guess the algorithm facebook uses to serve up content is not discerning enough. I am sick of filling my brain with negativity. The other thing is, my oldest son just joined facebook. So, I really can't be posting the kind of stuff I usually do, which is mostly pictures of my kids. In fact, I feel like it might be time to go and hide my previous posts all the way back to the beginning because I do not want to embarrass him (with "cute" pics from when he and his brothers were in elementary school.) I k...