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Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

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It's spring.  The world is rubbing its sleepy eyes and stumbling out of bed. The birds are singing from budding tree branches and (when it gets a little warmer) the bees will begin their rounds.  It's time to talk about sex.  Not how babies are made. As has been tradition at least since I was a child, in the spring of fifth grade students gather together at school to sit in uncomfortable silence while a teacher explains the basics of puberty and human reproduction.  Body hair, growth spurts, and menstrual periods, oh my.  I knew my son would get these lessons this school year, and I wanted to get ahead of it. By talking with him beforehand, I hoped to make him more comfortable while also giving him solid, fact-based information before he could hear rumor, innuendo, and falsities from his friends or classmates. Unfortunately, I held a lot of untrue and unhelpful ideas about sex and sexuality when I was young. And I didn't know all the parts of my own anatomy until a college
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The Hand That's Not Yours

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The picture is not of my mother's hand.  It's a stranger's hand, an anonymous woman's palm pressed flat against a sea of grainy white-gray snow.  The fingers are gently stretched straight. Waves of wrinkles rise over knuckles, like maybe the joints feel a little slow and stiff of late. The nails are short and rounded – practical but well kept – and ever so slightly discolored in silent acknowledgement of mature age. Three tendons stand out in ridges on the back of the hand, a testament of strength. Against a background of tawny skin, roadmaps of blue-green veins crisscross, telling of all the places it's been.  The hand is held next to the imprint of a wild animal's foot – bear or wolf, I can't remember – to illustrate the awesome size and impact of nature. But it's not the paw I care about. I've cropped most of the footprint out of the picture like so many forgotten details.  I desperately want to hold that hand.  I want to reach through the
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I Am Here

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When I walk downstairs, I touch the handrail on my right as I go. It's not a conscious thought, just a place to grab and steady myself as I take a first step. Neither my grip nor the weight of my hand is strong, and my palm is against the wood for only a second. But after six-and-a-half years, there's a faint yet noticeable spot of wear on the railing from my regular touches. A few inches of dark cherry stain is beginning to rub away, revealing the lighter oak underneath. It's indelible proof of a habit I didn't realize I had, because it had become so routine.  I am here. As a woman, as a mom, I often feel invisible. Clean laundry magically appears in the basket, sinks mysteriously become wiped spotless, permission slips miraculously show up signed and tucked into folders. Little thought is given, even by me, to the things I touch every day.  I recently noticed this mark on the railing and wondered where it had come from, then realized it's me - it's evidence of
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22 Pounds of Memory

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The weight was almost unmanageable.   When I was young my mother owned a manual typewriter, all metal and heft. It came in a box like a suitcase with a latch and plastic handle, and I was certain it weighed more than I did.  The machine itself was cream and gray with seafoam-green accents straight out of the 1960s. It smelled of ink and machine oil. Trapezoid keytops bore letters in a san-serif font on heavy plastic, and there was no number 1 - my mom explained the lowercase L doubled for the number. The keybasket where all the typebars come together was embossed with the silver words "De Luxe" atop a wash of seafoam.  The keys didn't yield like computer keyboards nowadays - back then if I wanted to communicate I had to put effort behind it, jam my point home with just my index fingers. On that machine my mom taught me my first typed sentence, about the goings-on of a quick red fox and a lazy brown dog.  I didn't have much else to write about in elementary school. I b
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Explaining Makeup to My Daughter

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Sweet girl of mine with ocean eyes and alabaster skin, you ask me how to put on makeup. What can I tell you that won't skew your fragile self-perception? Which words won't lead you to believe women are born imperfect and need improvement? You look to me for lessons on beauty and poise. Only 5 years old, you are my daily shadow but I am in shadow of you. You are already flawless - kinder and wiser than many adults I know. I hesitate to teach you how to cover up or alter yourself. So I will tell you instead what I've learned about makeup. Your foundation should be comprised of jojoba seed oil, minerals, the ideas you value most, aloe, zinc oxide, and all the places you've been. Spread it evenly across your life with your fingertips, taking care to fill any shadows of doubt. You are enough. You will think you need concealer to cover blemishes, but you'll be wrong. Never hide the line of three freckles that dot your chin or the small white scar between your eyebrows. Th
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Knowing What Not to Say

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"Do we have to pay for water?" my daughter asked last week as she played with Dolphin Magic Barbie and Jet Ski Stacie in the bath.  She's 7, and still discovering the where's and why's of how things work in our household. Recently we'd told her not to leave the garden hose running, because it wastes both water and money.  I explained that yes, we pay a utility company to send clean water through our pipes and into the tubs, faucets, and hoses.  "If you ever need money to pay for water, you can take some of my money," she offered.  As I looked into the face of this sweet girl I'm raising, I was moved by her open-hearted generosity, unselfishness, and willingness to help. And I knew exactly what not to say.  Barbie's Bathtub Adventures Growing up, my family frequently struggled to pay the bills . I remember around age 8 repeating to my Girl Scouts leader that we had an "outstanding Visa bill" even though I had no idea what that meant.
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Precious Vacation Friendships

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Last month my family spent six beautiful days on vacation near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  Someday I'd like to take the kids to Charleston for its history, both important and terrible. Prior to the Civil War, Charleston (a 90-minute drive from Myrtle) was the capital of the slave-trade industry, with as many as 40 percent of all enslaved Africans arriving at the New World through its port. It's essential to me that my children learn the unvarnished truth about this darkness in our national history, so they can better understand America as a whole.  But not yet. At 7 and 10, they're still too young to understand and appreciate seeing the historical artifacts of slavery in person. Rather than being educational, I think Charleston's stories would be deeply upsetting to them. So we stuck to the greater Myrtle Beach area on this trip.    It's a two-day, 700-mile drive to get there, so by the time we arrived at the resort my children were eager to run, make lots of noi
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