The Last Word

By: | May 16, 2015

Jennifer Holland with a large Tiger Shark in the BahamasMay 11-15, 2015

This week, LWONers had a variety of encounters with nature. Jennifer enjoyed a transcendent moment with a tiger shark, and Cameron’s van was mobbed by sphinx moths. Craig’s new location isn’t home until he has learned to read the calendar of his natural surroundings. With each shifting Spring dawn, he gets closer to home and Niki Wilson gets closer to putting away the blinding SAD lamp with which she bludgeons her eyes every winter morning in the Rockies. Memories of those same mountains psych me up to take on new challenges after a series of failures.

 

Image: Jennifer Holland with tiger shark, Bahamas, shot by Brian Skerry, on assignment for National Geographic

A Visit from the Sphinx

By: | May 15, 2015

15272834745_be1a418287_zOne night this spring I left all the doors open to the van. It was stinkier than usual, and I figured anyone who thought they might peer inside would have found little of value before being frightened off by the smell.

But the next morning when I turned the ignition on, the kids gasped. Our car was full of wings. Continue reading →

Guest Post: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

By: | May 14, 2015
Wahoo! It's spring everybody! Photo: CC BeYounger.com
Wahoo! It’s spring everybody!

It’s a beautiful spring day here in the Canadian Rockies, and inside my head I’m a slightly less perky Julie Andrews running through the fields singing The hilllls are alive, with the soouund of muusiiiiiic. I’m feeling much more upbeat than I was a couple of months ago. Sixteen hours of daylight stretch gloriously before me each morning, and it makes all the difference.

Let me start by telling you how the short, dark days of winter begin at our house:

When my alarm goes off at 6:50am, I hit two buttons. The first turns off the grating beeping of my yellowing, twenty-year-old alarm clock, and the second turns on my 10,000 Lux, full-spectrum light. Continue reading →

Trite and True

By: | May 13, 2015

Jessa_Rundle_RidgeThe beginning of 2015 has been discouraging for me. A series of fellowship applications and interviews elevated my hopes for this year, but not one has panned out, and now I am left with a plan vacuum. After so many coin flips having landed in my favor in the past, I’m sure I had a bad run like this coming.

In theory, there is nothing to lose by applying year after year for these opportunities. Play the numbers, I am advised. Persistence will pay off. But in my case I simply detest one key aspect of the process: the reference letter. Continue reading →

Something About Sharks

By: | May 11, 2015

5983449215_4133b6a852_zRecently, in the sumptuously warm waters off Maui, a woman went out snorkeling, got separated from her two friends, and was killed by a shark. Her body was found floating facedown about 200 yards offshore; the wounds on her torso told of her tragic end.

Considering how many of us spend time in the world’s oceans, unprovoked shark bites are pretty rare (fewer than 100 worldwide annually, according to the International Shark Attack File), and deaths by shark are even rarer. Writing about these animals some years back for National Geographic, I read that more people die under a toppled vending machine than in a shark’s mouth. (People get really mad when their Doritos get stuck.) While I’m not 100 percent confident in that statistic, it makes my point. Continue reading →

Last Word

By: | May 9, 2015

pregnantphoto

May 5-9, 2015

It was another Mother’s Week here at LWON.

LWON’s Motherhood series originated three years ago when Cassie shared her angst over whether or not to have a child. “I want to want a child,” she wrote. Back then, she didn’t — did she? Now her decision is made, and she’s still got a niggling knot of uncertainty.

Mom2An anonymous guest poster is sure that fairygodmotherhood is vastly overrated.

Craig’s mother is as adventurous as he is, and the two ventured together to a Yup’ik subsistence village 3 degrees below the Arctic circle.

I share three photos that begin to explain why my mom is the greatest.

 

 

 

Motherhood: Indecision 2015

By: | May 8, 2015

pregnantphoto

Three years ago, I wrote a post about having children. I was trying to decide whether I wanted one. I wish I could say that writing that post helped clear the fog of indecision, but that isn’t what happened. I continued to struggle and debate. And when that didn’t lead to a clear answer, I began to drunkenly poll people at parties. “Do you think I should have a kid?” I’d demand, taking a swig of my gin and tonic.

One moment I’d be swept up in the nostalgia of my own childhood. I’d imagine the pleasure of taking my daughter camping in the same hills where I camped as a kid. I’d show her how to roast the perfect marshmallow, how to light a fire, and how to pull off leeches. And the next moment I’d be sure I couldn’t manage motherhood. My hips were clearly built for bearing children, but my personality isn’t suited to raising them. I’m impatient and selfish and foul-mouthed.

A year and a half ago, my husband and I moved out of our cramped Brooklyn apartment. We bought a house in the Midwest, close to family. We adopted a puppy. We planted a garden. All signs pointed toward procreation. Yet I still couldn’t fully commit to the idea. So in December, when a pregnancy test delivered a single blue horizontal dash, I was relieved. But seconds later a perpendicular line appeared, transforming negative into positive, absence into presence. I stared at the plus sign dumbfounded. And then I began to cry. Continue reading →

Guest Post: The Fairy Tale of the Fairy Godmother

By: | May 7, 2015

CinderellaOnce upon a time, a beautiful girl lived in a not-so-faraway land. She was dreadfully abused by her mother, who was wicked as well as mentally ill. She was abandoned by her father, who was also wicked and mentally ill, and who had no job and nine cats. She had a wicked brother, but that part of the story turned out to be too terrible for even this fairy tale.

The girl was dreamy, impulsive, and traumatized, a good singer, and obsessed with dancing and dress-up clothes. Let’s call her Cindy.

Cindy is related to me through her mother, but her mother had cut off contact with our family when I was young, before Cindy was born. Through the magic of Google-stalking, I discovered that Cindy’s mother and I had coincidentally moved to the same part of the country. I could tell from various clues online that she had had children, and that they were very poor and had occasionally been homeless. I tried for years to contact her.

A few years ago, during a period of relative calm and lucidity, Cindy’s mother finally responded to one of my messages and agreed to see me. Cindy’s mother and I reconciled, and I bonded with her children. I made sure they wouldn’t go hungry anymore or be kicked out of their home, and we ate Chinese food together, and we all lived happily ever after.

Hahahahahaha. Ha ha. Ha. Continue reading →