My kids are eleven and thirteen years old, and my current work in progress is a middle-grade novel. Between the kids and the book, I’m up to my eyeballs in middle-school struggles, successes, and changes. It’s no wonder I’ve been thinking about my own tween years lately.
I turned eleven in 1984. When I was in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, a lot happened. Prince’s Purple Rain was released. For the first time, a woman—Geraldine Ferraro—ran on a major political party’s presidential ticket. Scientists identified HIV as the cause of AIDS. I saw Sixteen Candles at the movie theater. Ghostbusters. Amadeus. The Color Purple. Ronald Reagan was President of the United States. Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union. I played a lot of Super Mario Bros. The first .com was registered, and the first version of Windows was released. Pop stars sang together and raised millions to help the starving in Africa. Ordinary people held hands, formed a human chain across the United States, and raised even more money. Planes were hijacked. A volcano erupted. The earth quaked. A nuclear reactor exploded. A space shuttle did, too. The Oprah Winfrey Show debuted. Comet Halley visited our solar system. [Read more…] about We Are the World
If you have kids, you probably can recall something they did or said early on in their lives that seemed quintessentially them, a moment that encapsulated their very nature. I remember visiting my in-laws one afternoon, some months after the August birth of my first child. My father-in-law was trying to make my baby smile by teasing her about her nickname (“Pumky? What kind of name is Pumky?”). She was sitting on my hip—hadn’t, in fact, even started walking or talking yet—and it was clear from her expression, she didn’t appreciate what her grandpa was saying or how he was saying it. As soon as he fell silent, she blew a raspberry. It was a gratifying reaction. You tell him, Pumky. She still has that moxie. 
I miss my grandma’s soup. Several times, I’ve tried to recreate it but can’t find a recipe that reproduces it exactly. The results might taste good, but they don’t taste like Grandma’s soup.
Of all the damage this pandemic has wreaked and the changes it’s wrought, my kids’ giving up the piano shouldn’t rank high on my list of woes, but the piano sitting in my house these last couple of years, increasingly untouched and ignored, has bugged the heck out of me. As pianos go, it’s on the small end—a spinet. Yet even a small piano is a big instrument, and lately, given its silence and untapped potential, it also seems like a big sad symbol. 
I’m tempted to rename this fall—my fall, anyway—fail. All fall, I have failed. I haven’t planted bulbs for the spring yet, gathered hollyhock seeds, weeded the flowerbeds, cleaned out my bedroom closet, stuck to my diet, stayed in better touch with family and friends, or organized the pantry, all of which I promised myself I’d do. I haven’t even kept to my first-of-the-month blog post schedule. Here’s November’s: late! 
I didn’t notice it until the bird began occupying it for long stretches, clearly focused on the business of incubation. This bird—a cardinal—had built her nest in the Rose of Sharon outside our half-bath window. The clever cup of woven weeds, leaves, and twigs rested low in the bush and close to our house: a snug location, protected from spring showers and summer storms, and, for me, a lucky location. I had a front-row seat to a cool production.
My husband Michael and I met twenty years ago. On one of our first times out together, we went to the cinema to see The Fellowship of the Rings. It was a great date. Certainly, the fellowship could have stood a little femaleship and (cripes, Hollywood) some diversity. And yes, I found the backstory detours and not-an-ending ending disconcerting. Still, the fantasy adventure had some things going for it. The mischievous Merlin-y Gandalf, the sweet and earnest Frodo, the terrifically terrifying Elf Queen Galadriel, and all that Legolas-Aragorn-Arwen gorgeousness, plus the stunning landscapes and special effects (Arwen’s summoning of the flood!) and the sweeping score, enhanced with a little Enya mystical magic: They dazzled me. Michael and I were transported. 
Of all the pottery-making stages—centering, opening, pulling, raising the wall, and shaping—maybe the most difficult to learn is the first. Centering involves placing the clay on the wheelhead, squeezing and lifting the mound into a tall cone, pressing it back down, and exerting pressure toward the center until the clay revolves smoothly. 