Today I walked by the empty and padlocked playground of the elementary school in my neighborhood. Closed for the summer! I think back to when my kids were growing up: waiting for the yellow bus to bring them back – always slightly damp – from day camp; then in later years sewing on name tags and filling up trunks for four weeks of outdoor living; and finally after dropping them off, the peace and quiet at home. But I don’t miss the cost.
It was hard for families like mine …

DOING WHAT DAD WANTS TAKES A NEW TWIST!
Both our children are far away this year, so Father’s Day won’t be about the whole family “Doing What Dad Wants.” But it most definitely won’t be a joyless day. Instead, for my husband Bob and me it will be a celebration of “Dad’s Amazing New Project” – the BlueStone Gallery in Milford, PA (www.bluestonegallerymilford.com) which both our kids love.
We will be spending the afternoon where “Dad is Doing What He Wants.” In the past year, my husband has envisioned, brought to …

I have recently entered a new chapter in the story of my life – as measured in feline companions: cat slave once-removed. My 22-year-old daughter just became the unprepared savior of an eight-week-old kitten. She is understandably apprehensive about taking on the responsibility but also delighted at the prospect of establishing a home of her own, as cats do.
I smile at her anxiety and at the thought that she will look back on this as a chapter in her life identified by the cat in it. My first cat Archie …

Not long ago I came across some letters I had written home from camp. The envelopes were marked S.W.A.K. (For those who weren’t preteens back then, that stands for “Sealed With A Kiss.”) In the same shoe box were a few stilted “newsy” letters that my parents, who had no vocabulary for that kind of correspondence, had sent me – and several letters from friends. I recognized the handwriting on just about every one. After all, we had signed each others autograph books, corresponded over many summers and, in several …

Recently I was stunned to hear that a couple I have known – and, to tell the truth, envied – for years have gotten divorced. They always seemed so loving, so intimate, so supportive with each other. For over twenty years, they worked together, they traveled together, and I would often see them jogging together – in an uncanny synchronicity of strides. What went wrong? Like everyone who hears of such an unexpected break-up, I want to find out; and not only because of their marriage, but to understand grown-up …

My husband and I are leaving on the trip of a lifetime in early February. We are going to India for three weeks – to visit sites and spas and to make a pilgrimage to the southernmost tip of the country, where my late brother spent several transformative years. My husband is looking forward to it with all his characteristic energy and curiosity. I, on the other hand, am dreading it – not the vacation, but the going away.
Anne Morrow Lindburgh identified a common reluctance to set out on a …

At the start of our multi-decade marriage, my husband and I had a Noah’s Ark social life. In the evenings anyway, we went out with other couples; single friends were for lunch. Around the time that I stopped performing such housewifely functions as putting the very heavy bedspread on the bed in the morning (to lug it off again only hours later), I got up the nerve to make an occasional dinner date on my own – usually with a woman friend and usually on a night when my husband …

In late June I went to Nantucket with my mother and my children for what is probably the twentieth summer in a row. The annual pilgrimage to my mother’s time-share on that lovely island began when my kids were babies and my mother was in her prime – about the age I am now. I’m not sure where I was, except overwhelmed by the classic juggling act.
Over the years I have enjoyed the benchmark that the Nantucket trip offered to monitor my children’s growing up. I see it most clearly …

For the several years since the show was discontinued, I turn to “West Wing” reruns to visit with cherished but vicarious friends and colleagues, to bask in the camaraderie of shared mission, well-worn work habits, recognized foibles and strengths – and trust. I really miss the part of my life that got left behind when I moved out of the going-to-an-office life experience. I now have a different kind of community – although many of the players are women whom I worked with back then – which I have called …

Recently I was invited to speak to a group of about 300 women in the suburbs of New York City. They were full of energy, wit and candor about the changes they were experiencing. As always the “question” part of the evening became what we once called a consciousness-raising. And as always, there were surprises. Someone asked for a show of hands of the “single” – divorced, widowed, never married – women, and to my (and their) amazement two-thirds of the hands went up. (When I polled the divorcees further …