Category: Motherhood
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Don’t believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is
I have an office now. A genuine room of one’s own. It has walls of planked pine painted periwinkle blue and a ceiling that only just clears the top of my head. Most of the walls in the house are stone plaster, meaning you can’t just go hang up any old thing — but not…
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But No Queen Comes
Wednesday, March 18th There’s a passage in Rilla of Inglesidewhere Rilla’s companion, Mrs. Oliver, dreams about the upcoming Battle of Verdun. In the dream, a French soldier staggers up the veranda to where she stands. They shall not pass, he insists, over the peal of thunder and lashing rain. Rilla tries to take heart in…
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School Ties (or, the Campus Novel as a Counterfoil to Yet More Motherhood)
One of those heady, grey days. Wind gusts up to 55 miles per hour. The maple leaves outside my room are dancing like mad. The little kids at the school behind me have finished recess; the bigger ones at the school across the street are still going strong. It’s loud — a torrent of yips…
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A million words for bath-pruned skin
Pregnancy, to me, is like holding my breath: the longer it progresses, the harder it is to concentrate on anything besides its eventual end. My son has cropped up at the edge of the bed, one hand curled around the ancient Motorola cell-phone, long dead, that he carries with him everywhere. He is slurping on…
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Genius Burns, or Some Rational Thoughts on The Last Samurai
My son is a genius. He’s got two pink blocks in his hands that he is trying to fit in his mouth. One day he will be a great architect, or a renowned city planner. Although, he’s at a bit of an impasse right now. He jabbers encouragingly at the right block and then the…
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Who Put the Bomp
A few years ago, I wrote what might still be my favorite post. It was about the history of pockets, and it’s my favorite because for once, the conclusion came easy and neatly. Too neatly and pop-historically, to be sure — but I’ll stand by it. Here it is, so you don’t have to click and…
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The Last First Season
Friday night I walked through the Soho – Chinatown border, where continuous leans in structural black smoked cigarettes and lounged on restaurant benches next to vibrant old Asian women selling branches of longan, dragon’s eyes, and grapes the size of toddler fists. Fall is coming. My son’s last first season, and my own, in this…
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Ándale, Joto, Your Popsicle’s Melting, or Is Mechanical Reproduction Better than No Production at All?
Reality was the theme of English class my junior year of high school. Organic reality versus manufactured reality versus hyperreality. Is something real because you’ve experienced it? Because it looks/feels/smells/tastes just like that other thing, the one you know is real? Is it real because the New York Times said so? Because Brietbart said so?…
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Is Motherhood a Tattoo or a Shadow on the Sand: Some Thoughts on Identity in the Novel Outline
I just finished Rachel Cusk’s Outline, and I’m thinking, again, about motherhood. Or rather, the role of the mother. Or rather, roles. The roles of Outline’s narrator include: mother, ex-wife, writer. It is in that last capacity that she, an Englishwoman, has come to Athens, to spend a few weeks teaching a writing class, in…
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Taking Me in Increments, or How I Spent My Maternity Leave
I go back to work this coming Monday, and no one would be more surprised than the me of three months ago to learn that I HAVE MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT IT. On the one hand, my movements and (part of?) my mind will less tethered. On the other, Per is curiouser and curiouser, as free…
éclaircissements 