savagemama

A few nights ago we set an alarm to wake us up as the lunar eclipse was in full swing. I woke up before it went off. I opened the curtain to the moon in full shadow. I could hear Eliza stirring so I scooped her up and brought her to the window.

“I want to show you something,” I said.

“What?” she said.

“Look at the moon,” I told her as I held her in front of the window.

“Where?” she said. I pointed up toward the roofline we could see from the window. She stood, both hands on the windowsill looking into the sleepy darkness.

“I just want to lay with you,” she said. [Read more]

This time of year, chaos seems to be the catalyst that drives us from one day to the next.

Yesterday looked like this:

I woke up at six and wrote a freelance story before the kids woke up. When they did I filled juice cups, made cinnamon toast, dressed them in layers and got them in the car by 9 a.m. I dropped Eliza off at preschool staying long enough to work a puzzle with her, then grabbed the two two year olds I watch one day a week and ushered them toward the car. With three little girls I went to the post office, then the grocery store, then finally retreated to my house.
Read More »

When I was in graduate school a friend and I drove from Oregon to Montana for a little vacation. It was the summer between our two years at the University of Oregon and we needed a change of scenery. We weren’t really sure what we were doing in school, with our lives so we loaded up my car that September and drove straight toward the fire season of 2000. U of O is on the quarter system and we didn’t have to be back in Eugene until nearly October so we made the best of our mid-twenties angst and set to the road. In the weeks before we left I remember getting emails from Jenny catching me up on her trip to see her parents, her brother. Often they’d end with a simple M O N T A N A lest we forget our end of summer of road trip.
Read More »