What if…

September 28, 2017My Story 10 Comments

I had a conversation with my daughter the other night, as we do sometimes. These aren’t the conversation I imagined having with my six-year-old. Instead they are led by my best guesses at conversation topics and two battered cards reading “Yes” and “No.” Sometimes she is just humoring me and sometimes she is unavailable for … Read More

What moves me is…Medicaid.

July 6, 2017My Story 6 Comments

Since having my daughter Esmé six and a half years ago, I have been somewhat obsessed by the mechanisms of motion. From her first moments her body struggled to move in the ways so many of us take for granted, that I would watch, awed, at the dance we orchestrate just moving across the room—muscles … Read More

I Don’t Want To Write (About Health Care)

May 19, 2017My Story 16 Comments

I don’t want to write about health care, yet, somehow, I have to…because I am the mother of a child who is medically-fragile. I am the mother of a child who relies on Medicaid and protections for people with pre-existing conditions. And right now? Right now I cannot afford not to write about it. This … Read More

Mother’s Day: A Finish the Sentence Friday Post

May 14, 2017My Story 4 Comments

Her cool hand against my forehead I sleep well for the first time in days. All of the certainty of my womanhood slips away from me, and I am, again, her small child…my head in the safety of her lap. My body singing, “Mother. Mother. Mother.” *** When my own daughter was growing inside of … Read More

On the Border: Finish the Sentence Friday

February 24, 2017My Story 6 Comments

Some days I live on the border between my daughter and myself—reaching across, hoping to grab ahold of her, to understand. Some days I am certain I will never understand. *** I stood at the places that remain of the wall in Berlin. It was only in standing there that I understood that what we … Read More

Fire Alarm: Burning Anger and 45

February 10, 2017My Story 5 Comments

I am on fire. I leap forward immediately, pulling my pants off in one fast gesture, screaming, “No, no, no.” I yell out other words I cannot remember beyond the taste of them in my mouth, the feeling of them spewing out without my permission, without any conscious thought. I look toward Esmé, who remains … Read More

2016 In Review: Burns, Losses, and Magic

January 13, 2017Advocacy 2 Comments

Over the last few months I haven’t written here nearly as much as I promised myself I would—for a thousand reasons. It isn’t that I haven’t been writing. I’ve just been writing elsewhere…sometimes very publicly and sometimes working on the private words I’m not sure if I’ll ever let out of my computer. As I … Read More