Only When I Laugh
Filed Under All Posts, Christie Healey, Family, Parenting, Relationships | 7 Comments
For Christie Healey, time spent with relatives is just the ticket. Many of us have recently spent time with our families over the holidays. Family has taken on a very broad meaning and I am blessed with a wonderful family of choice. But, for now I want to reflect upon those persons in our family that we had no choice of selection. Time spent with the relatives can be revealing, precious, stressful, hilarious, and restorative. My former father-in-law comes to mind when I think of some of the adjectives I used above. He is an extraordinary person, a man of great persistence in certain areas. He loved golf. No, I mean he really loved golf. Practiced for over 50 years with no noticeable signs of improvement. He would swing a club in the apartment we shared whenever the obsession took over. Chips out of the concrete beam in the living room bear witness to his fervour. After some pleas, he agreed to use the “air” practice swing. One evening he was found lying on the floor in the bedroom. “What happened?” we cried. “I was going for distance,” he responded. Read more Filed Under All Posts, Parenting, Prudence Baird | 10 Comments For Prudence Baird, shopping for camping gear with her teenage son makes climbing mountains child’s play. Ah, teenagers. You gotta love ‘em. Or not. Just at the time your peers who had the smarts to drop their litters in their twenties or early thirties—or perhaps the smartest ones who decided not to have kids at all—are decorating a second home in the Hamptons or having their teeth capped and eyelids “done,” you are hauling an ungrateful hunk of hormones to R.E.I. to buy a backpack for his school’s mandatory weeklong trek in the Green Mountains; an outing designed to build esprit-de-corps. A typical exchange begins subtly. “I don’t see why I have to go.” Like a symphony, it builds, “What’s the point of going camping?” and “Why did you make me go to this school?” Here comes the bridge: “Why did you force us to leave Los Angeles?” Read more Filed Under All Posts, Family, Parenting, Prudence Baird | 13 Comments Prudence Baird is transported back to a time when her boys were small; a time rich with storybooks, morning hugs, inquiry and magic. Mother’s Day has come and gone—again bringing with it all the reminders that this phase of life soon will pass. Lumpy breakfasts in bed and hand-drawn cards, both lovingly crafted by children eager to please, have been replaced with brunch out and Hallmark cards personalized only as a grumpy teenager can do—with a signature. And so it is that under a starlit dome outside my bedroom window, as Gemini’s twins arc overhead and the grandfather clock begins to strike midnight, my restless mind mulls over a bittersweet discovery made earlier that day as I trawled through a neglected drawer looking for letter-sized file folders. My probing hand settled on a smooth plastic stick, a foot long, with rounded ends—a child’s toy; a magic wand mixed in with old pens, highlighters, Post-it notes and rolls of tape. The wand’s cool resin holds inside two liquids—one heavy and cobalt blue, one light and clear. In this embryonic fluid dances a teaspoon or so of silvery sparkling stars and tiny gold crescent moons that float from one end of the wand to the other. I hold the wand to the light. As the particles swim to and fro, I am transported Read more Filed Under All Posts, Parenting, Prudence Baird | 15 Comments The screen door bangs shut behind me, echoing in a house that only last week was filled with the last frantic scrabblings of summer vacation. The school backpacks no longer hang on their hooks by the door; they are off for another tour of duty filled with new spiral notebooks, freshly sharpened pencils, pocket-sized tissue packs and re-charged cell phones. I stand just inside the front door, unable to move. Unwilling to hang up my keys. Incapable of addressing this morning’s breakfast dishes, still in the sink. I am paralyzed by the sudden realization that all too soon there will be no more first days of school. Read more Filed Under All Posts, Family, Parenting, Prudence Baird | 11 Comments “Tim must be doing very well!” I can almost hear my friend Sarah’s eyebrows hitting her hairline when I tell her my family is going to England and Scotland for a month this summer. Yeah, this summer—when a cup of London Starbucks is ₤3, the equivalent of $6. Even though Sarah didn’t exactly ask the question, she did beg it: Why on earth would a sane person, let alone a family of four, hop the pond now when the dollar is in the toilet and even the esteemed New York Times Travel section trumpets “Europe? It’s way too expensive!” Read more Filed Under All Posts, Parenting, Prudence Baird | 11 Comments To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go bicycle riding with the family you have, not the family you want or wish to have at a later time. For one thing, there is no later time. Having children at ages 38 and 40 IS later. And for another…well, there is no other. Options are limited when you debut a husband, two infants and a mortgage early in the second act of your life. Read more Filed Under All Posts, Christie Healey, Father's Day, Group Posts, Parenting | 2 Comments I knew Fred would be an artist when he was four years old. He started to create a complex color drawing: 24 inches long and 20 inches wide. The drawing started with a boat, then an iceberg was added followed by sharks and other underwater creatures. The drawing would be worked on for weeks at a time and then put away for months before being taken out again. He completed the piece just before his sixth birthday. As complex as the final artwork became, it was not cluttered. Plenty of white space to rest the eye, create flow and add dimension. Read more
Is it Too Late Not to Have Kids?
Once Upon a Childhood…
Prelude to an Empty Nest
Penny Wise, Pound Foolish
A Killer and the Bee
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
