nature deficit disorder

by kristin
when i was a little kid, i spent a lot of time outside with my friends. unsupervised. we made witches’ potions out of dirt and juniper berries, jumped out of trees and roamed the woods and canyons near our house. i walked to the bus stop a mile away from home and [...]

Peace Mom Goes Home

by Stacey
Peace activitist Cindy Sheehan who became the public face of protest against the war in Iraq has decided to call it quits. Sheehan’s son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan was killed in an ambush in Baghdad in 2004. He was 24 years old. Soon after, his mother spent a month waiting outside President Bush’s ranch [...]

hiking haiku

by kristin

walking down the trail
has become impossible
focus, kid, focus
*************************
what’s your haiku for the day?

Lessons from the Game of Life

by Stacey
How much can we really learn about the meaning of life from a roll of the dice on a board game? A recent article in the New Yorker explores how games of “life” reveal society’s answers to such questions as, what are we living for? And today’s version, due to come out this summer, [...]

princess

by kristin
thumbing through this month’s vanity fair, i found this photograph and can’t stop looking at it:

maybe it’s because gelsey kirkland is aging. her life story is fascinating. but mostly, it’s because this image looks like motherhood to me, especially the mothering of girls. the crone with all her experience, all [...]

News of Interest

by Stacey
Scanning the news, Mary Cheney, Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Samuel David Cheney yesterday in Washington, DC. I wish her and her partner well and welcome them to the wonderful, terrible world of parenting.
But what is with the elder Cheneys? Just following the birth, the [...]

sparkly light

by kristin
sitting in a hot tub at the dreamy olympus spa, i told my friend about sadie’s playdate problem: lately, when her girlfriends come over to play, sadie checks out their outfits and insists she needs to wear the same thing. if we can’t find a purple leotard with a skirt that doesn’t [...]

Rough tough

by Stacey
My son Sage has a classic case of extreme friendliness. He shouts “Hi!” and waves to strangers in their cars as he’s riding his tricycle on the sidewalk. He likes to chat up the homeless guys who drink and rant to each other on the benches at our neighborhood park. And he’s always game [...]

nightmare

by kristin
last night, i had a terrible dream. lily died. the circumstances were fuzzy and accidental, no one was at fault. but the thing that woke me at 4 in the morning, gasping for breath, was the grief. it came in tidal waves of the deepest sorrow; disorienting, overwhelming and endless. [...]

Doctors behaving badly

by Stacey
There have been a number of articles in recent years describing a common and cozy relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies. The deal usually looks like this: a drug company pays a doctor money, usually in the form of speaking fees at conferences, and the doctor in turn “teaches” his or her peers about [...]