Motherhood From Afar

This is my last column at Literary Mama, marking a journey of nearly two years since I began mothering from afar. I had hoped that by now I’d have everything…

It’s funny, and I can say this now because I’m on the flip side most of the time, but my biggest fears in those days were about judgment. The worst…

My expression of motherhood has been one long chain of sacrifice. I didn’t plan it that way, but I can look back now and see what I created: Quitting jobs…

This morning I woke up from a dream, the kind of dream that you just know is a mirror of real life. Anais Nin said once that “We write to…

My mother was no artist. One day when I was eight she brought out a boxed art kit and drew fantastic trees with wonderful wild wiggly branches and roots. I…

Everything changed, then, when I left Pennsylvania a year ago. I stepped back from trying to be everything for my children. I left room for a distant father to become…

“Non-custodial parent? What is that?” I tensed, ready to explain my unconventional choice to someone who didn’t “get” it, and started with my standard opener. “My kids don’t live with…

She had blue hair. She left strands of it throughout the school for me to find, so I would know I was never safe. In my dreams she was chasing…

The bus lurched to a stop, its distinctive orange-yellow easily visible in my rented rear-view mirror. A knot of kids emerged and I struggled to locate my daughter in the…

In a few days I’ll board a plane bound for Pennsylvania and my children. I’ve rented a house for the week that we’ll be spending together, so we’ll be able…

On Mother’s Day this year, a month before I left, I cut Nathaniel’s hair for the last time. He sat on the porch stoop in a t-shirt and shorts, shivering…