I thought I would never forget the time, the place, the season. What I wore. What she wore. The faces of the people I met that day.
But I have forgotten. It's a blur. The only thing I remember is wanting to cry.
I had taken my granddaughter, Lucy, into Boston to a modeling agency. She was 17 months old. My grandson Adam, Lucy's cousin, was barely 7 months. It was his mother's idea.
Read More“Once upon a time, I was a little girl just like you,'' I tell my 3-year-old granddaughter.
And she squinches up her nose and shakes her head and says, ``No, you weren't.''
I show her pictures of me when I was 2 and 5 and 8. I say, ``See. I had hair just like yours.'' I show her my fourth-grade school picture. ``Look. Here I am.'' I call my childhood friend Rosemary and say, ``Rose? Talk to Charlotte. Tell her how old we were when we met.'' And Rose tells her that we were 7 and in second grade.
But Charlotte remains unconvinced.
Read MoreWhere did June go? And May? And why does February plod and March stall, while spring and summer fly by? It's July Fourth - the quintessential summer holiday - and I still have winter coats hanging in the front hall closet. I haven't planted any annuals yet. Or weeded my garden. My window boxes are empty. There's not a single flower on my deck. My marigolds are seeds in packages. The lawn furniture remains in the shed. And I haven't even begun to make a summer reading list.
Read MoreHe loves her and she loves him, and it is magic to see. Since she was a baby peeking out of her carriage, Lucy has smiled at Al. And Al, in his eighties, has smiled right back, their eyes locking, their hearts touching. You could say it's been love since first sight…
Read More"Once upon a time, I was a little girl, just like you," I tell my 3-year-old granddaughter.
And she squinches up her nose, shakes her head, and says, "No, you weren't."
I show her pictures of me when I was 2 and 5 and 8. I say, "See. I had hair just like yours." I show her my fourth-grade school picture. "Look. Here I am." I call my childhood…
Read MoreIt's perennial wisdom, the stuff of graduation cards and a top contender on lists of ``best advice.'' You have to look at the big picture. This is what we tell our kids and it's what responsible adults told us. The big picture is the Holy Grail. To be a success, you have to know where you are going and you have to have a plan. ``Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.'' I have always loved this analogy. But the truth is I find the big picture - from the simplest question asked of a child, ``What do you want to be when you grow up?'' to the most complex asked years later, ``What's it's all about, Alfie?'' - overwhelming…
Read MoreMy husband bought me the dollhouse when I was eight months pregnant with my youngest child. That was 33 short years ago.
It was January, and between snowstorms, when he packed our two kids in the station wagon and said, "I'll see you tonight." He then drove I don’t know how many miles north of Portland, Maine, to pick up a dollhouse I’d been dazzled by at a craft show a few months..
Read MoreShe was silent as I was putting on makeup, standing on a stool, all 2 1/2 feet of her stretching and straining to see my every move.
My granddaughter Charlotte is newly three and is never silent, not even when she sleeps. But last Friday morning she stood in my bedroom miraculously mute and mesmerized. Moisturizer, foundation, blush, mascara, and lipstick. They had cast a spell.
Read MoreI used to think, when I was young and a new mother, that some day when I was older, Mother's Day would be all about me. I'd be feted and honored and celebrated. And I'd revel in it, like Queen for a Day.
Oh I got cards that first year, from my husband and from my infant son, which my husband signed with X's and O's. And from my mother and my mother-in-law, ``Congratulations on your first Mother's Day!'' And there were gifts, too. But I felt like an imposter.
Read MoreI saved every card. They're in a box under the bed that used to be my daughter Lauren's. I saved even the ones created when my children were so little that they couldn’t yet print and someone — a Sunday School teacher, their grandmother — traced their tiny hand onto a piece of construction paper, then colored…
Read MoreHe was cool about it. The word "recital" simply didn’t phase my 6-year-old grandson. This is how he saw it: People would come and listen to him play the piano and after it was over, he'd bow and they'd clap. Then on the way home, he and his dad would stop and get an ice cream…
Read MoreIn the end, after a few hours, a few months, I dismiss these things. Chalk them up, as Ebenezer Scrooge did, to ``an undigested piece of beef.'' The butterfly that shadowed me the day after my father died. The bird that found a crack in a window and flew into my house after my mother died. Messengers, at first. But in time, simply a butterfly, simply a bird.
Read MoreI had an idea a while ago about writing a book called ``Everything I Know I Learned from My Garden,'' full of pithy if not original insights. Growth can't be rushed, for one, or maturity counts, and it really does matter where you're planted. I scribbled some notes, but got predictably sidetracked. Then winter came and my garden died. (I know: It's not really dead. Which is another life lesson: Things are not always what they seem.) Still, I abandoned the project…
Read More2009, I hardly knew ye. You came and went. You blew in on the heels of Christmas last year and now you are making your exit. A whole year — 365 days. Where did you go?
I see on my calendar, first days, then months crossed off. I lived these days, months…
Read MoreMy first Christmas card arrived a few days ago. It was still November and there it was, a photo card, no less, perfectly lighted and cropped and addressed and mailed!
I studied it while eating Thanksgiving leftovers. How is it possible that people are this organized?
Last year at Thanksgiving, all my grandchildren were in one place - my house for the long weekend - and I dressed them in brand new, (which means, as yet unstained) matching Christmas pajamas. Then I rounded them up, begged them to sit still, look at the camera and smile.
Read MoreUncle Shorty was born in a hotel elevator in Washington, D.C., in January 1974. I had two children then, one five and one three, who had just spent 10 long hours in their car seats, reluctant passengers on a tedious ride from Boston to our nation's capital…
Read MoreA beloved Golden Book inspires a sweet family tradition.
"Can you read me the Granny Glittens story, Mimi?" Adam asked, though he is nearly seven now and likes to read to himself. "I like chapter books," he told me the last time he slept over. Mercy Watson was his choice then….
Read MoreThey're intrepid little flowers, dancing in the snow, lovely things - these orange and yellow marigolds that I have disparaged my whole life. They are the last to leave the party, a sudden standout because they stand alone.
The violet charm clematis that grew tall and leggy behind them; the blood red dahlias that dazzled beside them; the pinks and the plums and the purples that swayed and sashayed their way through June, July, and August, outshining them every day - did not outlast them. They have all vanished now like Cinderella's coach and gown. The clock struck, and they withered…
Read MoreI was such a goofy kid that I actually believed that when you grew up, life turned into a musical. I was raised on musicals - Judy Garland, Doris Day, and Gene Kelly singing and dancing on the small TV in our living room, ``The King and I,'' ``Annie Get Your Gun,'' ``South Pacific'' - blaring from a record player when the TV wasn't on.
Music filled our little house. My mother sang. I sang. My father tried to sing.
I thought everyone sang.
Read MoreI was sure the bat would send them over the edge. It is hairy and huge and horrifying. It has giant white fangs, an eight-foot wing span and menacing "I’m-gonna-get-you-then-devour-you-alive" flashing red eyes.
I hung it in the archway between…
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