sea salt

Every night, after a bath, some books, and a few songs (her favorites are "Blackbird" by the Beatles, as well as the theme song from Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood ), I hold Jolene close to my chest and say a prayer. It used to be simple—" Help Jolene to know how much we love her, and how much you love her. Keep her body growing strong, her mind growing sharp, and her heart growing kind. " For a while, that seemed like enough. But this year we've battled so much as a nation–the disturbing rallying cry of white supremacism, more mass shootings, a bullying administration, and the day-to-day battles that every person faces on their own: news of a child's death, a friend getting cancer, another getting divorced. It's been hard to feel creative, and it's been a challenge to figure out how to address any of this without immediately attracting rampant negativity from those on opposing sides. After reading several books by Ta-Nehisi Coates, I sai...

I really didn't know if I wanted to write this blog anymore. I was so bruised by the trolls after my "surrendered" piece was published, disillusioned by the reality of what it means to publish in outlets bigger than the small literary journals I was used to, exhausted from telling the story and explaining why I had deleted my Twitter account and stopped blogging. I was also just tired . But a lot of changes have happened since then, and it got me thinking about writing again. At one point, I started a blog I was really excited about - The Mom Brains - but after the election we were all so weary, and I found I didn't enjoy having to hound my friends to send me their writing (as I was a writer, but also the managing editor). So I took to LinkedIn, writing about career, and that proved satisfying (it still does - I'm not stopping that anytime soon!). But then I had an idea I really wanted to write about, and then another, and another. It didn't feel right t...