A decade ago, when I was in my son’s room folding laundry, he told me about an experience he was having on a school sport’s team. The exact details don’t matter – all kids deal with some sort of challenge in the middle school years. But if I had to name this one it … Continue reading It’s Just Material: Writing as a Coping Strategy
Parenting
What Your Teenager’s Brain is Craving (hint: it’s not warm cookies)
I thought serving warm chocolate chip cookies to a group of teenagers would be a welcome offering for a first class on a Saturday afternoon. Especially in winter. “Cookies? Help yourselves,” I said. Silence. No movement toward the center of the round table where I nestled them in a double layer of foil. “Really! Take … Continue reading What Your Teenager’s Brain is Craving (hint: it’s not warm cookies)
Sweater Woes
Two days after my mom and I culled the disorganized racks of a post-holiday sweater sale, I needed her guidance with a sweater I’d been knitting for Andy, my college age son. It was the afternoon before he needed to go back when I called her for help. “We are really down to the wire,” … Continue reading Sweater Woes
Owl Watching
In the same week that I decided to put up bird feeders along the busy road in front of my home, an owl moved into the owl house outside my kitchen window. The house has been there for years. I watched it often in the time period immediately after Dave put it up – naively … Continue reading Owl Watching
What Made Me Swim Across the Deep Dark Lake
My heart was still racing thirty minutes into the swim, my arms and legs flailed, there was no ease or even any discernible rhythm to my body’s movements in the green murky water. I concentrated on just trying to move fast in my failing effort to burn off the energy my nervous system released. I … Continue reading What Made Me Swim Across the Deep Dark Lake
The Thing I Hadn’t Seen Because I’d Never Really Looked
It was an attempt to get them to sit there longer – my reading of story books at the dinner table. I had several little boys and a husband who worked late and a lack of patience at day’s end. I also had a picky eater, the tipping point of it all. He … Continue reading The Thing I Hadn’t Seen Because I’d Never Really Looked
“You Should Read This Book”
We have this occasional exchange, usually at night, my husband and me. “You should read this book,” he or I say, whoever gets to their bookmarked page first. And then we go off to our separate lands on the pages in front of us and leave it at that. We know it is probably unlikely. … Continue reading “You Should Read This Book”
Facing My Fear of “Not Getting It”
It’s hard to admit that I often dread the process of learning new things. I worry that I won’t get “it,” whatever the “it” is. This is why I quietly cringed recently when my son opened up a birthday gift from his brother, the board game Settlers of Catan. I knew he would eventually ask … Continue reading Facing My Fear of “Not Getting It”
How I Found the “Merry” in Christmas by Suddenly Letting Go
Every year, in early December, my husband and I have the same conversation: Him: Can we not overdo presents this year? Me: Sure. Him: But you say that every year. Me: But this year will be different. I promise. By middle December, I start to feel panic rising. “The most magical time of the year” … Continue reading How I Found the “Merry” in Christmas by Suddenly Letting Go
Don’t Clean the Basement Alone in Your Midlife Empty Nest
Empty Nest, when I say it quickly, sounds to me like the word emptiness. Emptiness means something is missing; as if there was once something there and it needs to be found. Like an empty nest which lost the birds, abandoned. I imagine a little round pile of sticks and branches, carefully placed, so … Continue reading Don’t Clean the Basement Alone in Your Midlife Empty Nest
Megan Houston Sager 