Happy Mother's Day!

Cheers to the perfectly, imperfect mother. Whether you are one or were raised by one, I hope you'll read my latest post:  Bad Ass Mother . Thougths!

Have a great day.

There was a period when we were working on our book (Still Here Thinking of You ~ A Second Chance With Our Mothers) that we recorded conversations about different aspects of our experience together. We called them “Thursday Mornings at Ten.” Here’s one titled “Missing Our Mothers.” 



Lori: I’ve found that when something’s going wrong, when something feels very dramatic in my life, or if I’m sad, I want to call my mother.…

I was writing about a night when my mother was drinking heavily. She was telling me a story I had never heard before, a secret about her own mother. I sat at my computer and typed, but I wondered: why am I writing this? I felt ashamed, guilty, not because of what my mother was saying and doing in this piece, but because I was writing it.



What belongs to me? What am I allowed to reveal?



I feel safer with fiction. There I can disguise, exaggerate, maneuver…

I used to think my relationship with my mother had ended with her death. Once she was gone, all that we had ever said to each other, the things we had done together, the memories I carried of my life with her, were finite.

I used to believe that a memory was fixed; the past was concrete, stable, constant. What had gone before could not be altered.

When I decided to write about my mother and me, I thought it would be like taking dictation. I would…

xo S

Last month while watching news coverage of the Presidential Inauguration I heard one of the commentators talking about seeing a woman - a mother, presumably - in the crowds watching from the roadside as the President and First Lady passed by. This commentator seemed shocked to see the woman holding what appeared to be a leash with a toddler at the other end. It was then that I remembered this short piece I wrote several years back. I hope you enjoy...…

Journalist Nikhita Venugopal, who covers Cobble Hill for DNAinfo.com, interviewed me yesterday and we spoke about my novel, Cutting Teeth (St. Martin's Press 2014), the modern parenting experience and more.

It was so much fun, and Nikhita was…

Originally posted at my blog, The Writing Scott.

He smiles with his whole face

this beautiful  miracle that is my son Jabulani

my heart falls on its knees with gratitude

for this honor

Amen

This summer I moved from Brooklyn to Chicago with my husband and toddler twins.  I thought the change in locale might help slow me down.  The opposite happened instead.  The pace of a writing life has little to do, sometimes, with the city outside one’s head.

She Writes asked me to share…

 There are moments when you get a glimpse of the person your child is becoming and it is bittersweet.  A recent trip to Paris with her made me see she's no longer my little girl. She is becoming a beautiful young woman of sixteen.  I'm so grateful to have had the chance to spend the week with her...and shockingly, there were no arguments!…

Yesterday's rehearsal was bad. Beyond bad. Let me clarify. My playing was beyond bad. Everyone else was just dandy. As the first violin, however, I anchor the group, and if the anchor isn't set into solid ground, the whole boat drifts, no matter how sound it might be.

I had no focus. Passages that I'd played…

Note: First appeared in Seattle Daylight Writers in 2011.

Twenty-four hours ago, my best friend was committed to a psych ward. My BFF. The first girl I ever really loved. It all began in…

The day you came into my life, I honestly didn't know what to think; we had waited patiently for your arrival for months, well let's be honest, I was a tad impatient in the end. 

I had planned for this day for most of my life, but now that it was here, and in the days and months that followed, I was gripped by fear at every turn, not the fairy tale happiness that I had always imagined you'd bring when you finally came.

I know I missed some of your important moments while I…

After a monthlong hiatus I am back to blogging and as luck would have it my mother and her dog offered the juiciest drama of all to write about this week.  

My mother's beloved dog might be pregnant after spending a night carousing in my town. All my fault, of course.  Well, despite the drama I had to find the funny in it. I hope you do too!

Grandma Kay's…

I'll be leaving on a week-long cruise to Mexico in a couple of days. 

I'm excited about the trip, but I'm also excited about releasing "Feign", my poetry collection. I've sent out messages / posts / tweets about the release, and created and scheduled a Facebook ad, so I'm hoping to break my previous record of 230 downloads in 24 hours. Then again, I'm not sure if people are really all that enthusiastic about poetry and song lyrics…

Kelley, Since the birth of my beautiful daughter 13 yrs. ago, I feel very emotional with too many things at one time. My work life, marriage, and neighbourhood, have caused me to have the feeling that someone or something does not want me to be comfortable in my own space/skin, and overall happiness. My dad passed just 3 months prior to his eightieth, Mom is eighty two now, and I fear my husband is leaving me. My resilience is gone. Could you help? Joy…

The Red Wheelbarrow

William Carlos Williams

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the…

Hello Kelley-

Immediately following the birth of my son I had an eclamptic seizure. I had another two hours later, at which point I was medically sedated and put in intensive care for my son's first night of life. I feel there is a spiritual lesson to be gained from this experience, but I'm having a hard time accessing it. Since then, almost two years ago, I've had a difficult time feeling as in-tune…

I was in labor with my first child. Contractions, fear, anxiety, and excitement rippled through me. The husband had my suitcase. The bed was made. Our one-bedroom-with-a-den apartment was tidied. I was all ready to go.

Then I saw a sock on the floor. It seemed, in my contracting and anxiety-ridden state, too hard to bend over and pick it up--and I am proud to say it also seemed too niggling a detail about which to bother the husband.

I'll get that…