What angle shows the blooms best? How will you know that I’ve had these flowers for a week and they’re just now they are starting to sing? Yet I’m not a photographer. I can’t capture the way these flowers make me feel. How every new turn we take highlights ideas we didn’t see at first. […]
Category: Parenting
This Shore
I can’t make things easier just by wishing it were so. I can only stand in the path that is my life. It doesn’t help to think it was harder back there. Or to know it’s easier than so many other places that people stand. This ache is my ache. The pulling apart of the […]
The Dance
The Dance by Nancy Schatz Alton I fold over myself into who I used to be: if we didn’t like ghosts, we wouldn’t become parents 6, 16, 22, 13, 8: our lives illuminated by those who come after. It’s a song we keep singing while forcefully dropping the storyline. I see me back […]
Teens: The Fire and the Flood
An Ode to the Teens “You’re the fire and the flood” -Vance Joy Teens are a revelation and a joy. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. They are the fire and the flood. The burning and the waking, the quaking and the trees (growing leaves) that shake our house. Their leaves are red and orange […]
They Come & Go
They Come & Go by Nancy Schatz Alton I sing praise to what remains: the living room lit by tiny lights my family talking me returning. All the phrases that help remind me of what remains these phrases swirl & catch & hit the light. it could have been otherwise there was always […]
Soil, Dirt, Dirty
I am trying to take it all in. The mornings that I am gracious and open, offering my daughter a hug when she says I think I’m sick. The mornings I’m not kind and I get to apologize. The way it feels to be wrong again. The way it feels to learn to apologize. How […]
What’s In The Silence But A Song?
What’s in the silence but a song? by Nancy Schatz Alton Every day I set up a space. I put slants on either side. I wish for the words to flow for my sentences to reach your ears with the rhythm that I feel as I listen to my daughters sing alone or together in […]
This Resting Place
This Resting Place by Nancy Schatz Alton It’s possible to know what I want: a long walk warm coffee fresh expensive pastries cut & shared a weekend spent with intention: walk, coffee, eat write, yoga, no shopping, a little sorting reading. It’s possible to relish where I’m at now: a long way into parenthood […]
Giving Thanks
“To feel close to you is good.” -David Hernandez Every time I hear kids’ laughter in my house or see Liz’s lips curl up into a full, joy-filled smile, I think we did it: we made a home. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Our Own Front Porch
The sun is pouring through the front window and I’m trying to figure out what to write. I have little time. I’m working at the bookstore today. I’ve tried reading to see if it spurs me to write something interesting. I’ve read some great lines that I wish I wrote. I see time running out […]