By Beck This is a reprint of my Valentine’s Day post from last year and it’s one of my very favorite things I’ve ever written. Do you still have living grandparents? Between the two of us, my husband and I have three – two grandmothers and a grandfather – and our relationships with them are…
Author Archives: Beck
“I am made of wood,” said Tottie. “Good wood.”
By Beck You’ve no doubt seen the ads for them in women’s magazines, those creepily realistic wrinkled baby dolls that can be bought in installments, although I have no IDEA who buys them. No one I know, anyhow, and I know people who collect almost anything: antique poison bottles, taxidermied animals, old playing cards, chipped…
All Things Are New
By Beck By the time you read this, it will be 2009, although right now while I am writing this it is still the very dregs of 2008 and all of my kids have feverish, snotty colds and we’re watching Wall-E and eating appetizers – the usual New Year’s Eve pattern for us. Even with…
The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world.
By Beck My mother has been a teacher for a while now – in fact, one of her current students told her that she’d taught her grandmother. And it is a sign of my mother’s sterling character and good sense of humour that she was delighted to hear this. My mother is the teacher that…
Finally
By Beck I was sick! But now I’m not. I was actually sick for the past three weeks, this grim stomach bug that’s been making the rounds locally. It was pretty great – I’d be really sick for a day or two and then it would ebb away and I’d start thinking, foolishly, that I…
Dreams I Had Ages Ago
By Beck This is a reprint of something I wrote – and liked very much – back in February of 2007. I’m a bit too distracted right now for a bunch of reasons to write anything fresher. Enjoy! I dreamt last night that I was desperately driving a snowmobile across near-open water while wolves chased me….
The End Of November
By Beck The old coin about the year – that spring was youth, summer was vibrant maturity, fall was middle age and winter… well, winter was old age and death – anyhow, that coin feels very true right now, but not in a bad way. The year is coming to an end and everything…
Play Freebird!
By Beck “I want to go away for the weekend or something,” I grumped at my husband the other night, which caused him to look at me in some alarm. We’re surrounded by a lot of families that have suddenly fallen apart, generally because the mother – almost always the mother of young school-aged children…
Changing Music
By Beck I lost my mp3 player recently – where could it have gone? I really don’t know – and it’s surprising to me how much I’ve missed it. I only use it once a day, while I’m falling asleep at night, and I certainly don’t listen for very long – even without babies, I…
Storms
By Beck It has been unseasonably warm here for the past several days, a condition – the weather guy assures us – that will pass by the weekend. Meanwhile, my kids have been delighted to head off to school in shirts and fall jackets, freed, if only for a moment, from the heavy tyranny of…