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Showing posts from September, 2012

Separation

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The Boss is Montessori educated. Every so often, bits of the methodology will come home either through the the weekly newsletter, the monthly magazine, or a parent education evening. Only what I deem directly relevant to me and my family, at that moment in time, sticks to my gray matter. Here's relevant for you: Maria Montessori's careful study tells us that children begin to eschew parental attachment in favor of peer interaction at a certain age (around 6 or 7). What I’ve learned for myself is that the estrangement is not one-sided.  I’ve relied on my daughter’s dependency for the first six years of her life. She put me in context. I was The Boss's mother because that's what she needed me to be. Now that she is exhibiting the first signs of social self-sufficiency, I’ve taken it, on some level, as permission for a subtle shift in my own identity. I'm still heavy on the mom thing--and I always will be--but the psychic weight of the first few years of motherhood is

On Movie Criticism, or Maybe Just On a Movie

I've always been fascinated by the things I love without knowing why. It's a weak-willed fascination, to be sure. I don't search for answers. I am satisfied with ambiguity. It seems as if, maybe, I thrive on it. Take the move "Friends With Money."Jennifer Aniston is in it, and that's the type of movie it is.

Ode to the Crows Upon My Mid-life Crisis

I have crow's feet now. They weren't there when I started this blog. I don't know exactly when they showed up, those subtle footprints of age, but I know when I noticed. It was Tuesday. Since then, I've been scouring the Internet and store shelves for eye serum to fill in the "fine lines and wrinkles." I've been staring in the mirror, watching the tiny claws dig deeper with each manufactured smile. Maybe I laugh too much. Or maybe I only noticed the lines in the first place because I haven't been laughing enough. The birds, though: I've attuned to the them for awhile, those harbingers of doom and death. I've seen them on the wires and wondered what's coming. But omens are subtler than that. Crows don't denote imminent destruction--not usually, not in real life. They're a reminder only that it's always in the wings.