April is…
I’m truly grateful to be here to greet another April. It’s such a hopeful month, with spring springing up everywhere. This month is also known as Autism Awareness Month. To those who love someone who lives with autism, every month, week, and day is a new chance to be aware. Insert my face with a […]
To Sleep, Perchance to Wake and See the Stars
Bink does not sleep solidly through the night, ever. When she was younger it was especially challenging, because she’d wake up and need me to be right there with her, and she’d often be up for hours. Sometimes, after waking at 1 or 2 am, she’d stay up the rest of the night and all […]
Arrivals
I’m posting this a day before my daughter’s 26th birthday. I’ve always felt, with certainty, that we were meant to incarnate this way, as mother and daughter, at this particular time in the life of this planet. I don’t need to know why, because I know it’s true. Happy birthday, Bink. You are the best […]
The Meaning of Compassion
The Kuan Yin She keeps watch in the warm corner of my bedroom, her bearing almost more regal for the rivers of cracks and generous chips that mark her faded turquoise. Her right hand, the deliverer of action, folds into Gyan Mudra, the gesture of consciousness. Preparing to take her picture, I haul myself into […]
Little Things
It was, in my home, an ordinary weekend morning. I rose before him, he before her, the felines were fed. I made three different kinds of tea, two prepared with stevia and soymilk, one with honey. It was the latter that sparked it. She who has such challenges, she who’s made such gains, she whom […]
The Sings
Someone posed the question: What is it that brings you untethered delight, especially when nobody is watching? I’ve a bouquet of such things in my heart, but the biggest flower right now would have to be the sings. May I explain? There are some tells. She needn’t speak. Autism tends to announce itself. It’s her […]
Fat on Silence
I need to write it down. I should do this before true memory fades and is replaced, as it so often is, by a recall that looks like The way I wanted it to be, or The way I think it should have been. This is what we do, being humans of great imagination […]
SHE and DOE
It was a few years ago that I found myself meandering in a quaint little town in western Massachusetts, about two hours east of home. I saw the sign, which read, simply, THRIFT. As a a fervent fan of space and simplicity, I practice de-cluttering my home and […]
NOT ZEN, BUT NOW
Being present is easy when the blue sky moment is trimmed with green grass, when temperate breezes blow your hair back gently from your bright, clean face. You can hop off the worry train quickly in such minutes and hours. You can drop your baggage carelessly to the ground without so much as a glance […]
Today’s Truth
We all have challenges, right? Bink has rocky periods, when her anxiety rises and OCD rears its particularly ugly head. There is no easy or quick fix for these times, though we try many things. When she hurts, I do, too, with my whole heart. I know things will change, because they always do, but […]