There comes a time

There comes a time when what happened in your marriage is simply a sad, sweet story. And what happened in your divorce is its sad sweet climax, followed by the sad, sweet denouement of co-parenting. And you love those stories as you love your dear, old dying dog who has defended every threshold you have crossed for the past 13 … Read More

Interview: Carolee Bennett

Carolee Bennett is a poet and artist whose work and spirit I have been admiring from across the country for many years now. She exudes life force, passion and wisdom. And she’s hilarious. That’s a lot to pack into one life. I am honored that she was willing to share her perspective on divorce with us here. A pre-interview note … Read More

Coming out as a blended family

I arrived first at the birthday party with Teddy. As he streaked off into a conga line of shrieking children, I entered the kitchen and was introduced around to friends and family. A half hour later during the clown performance, Pete and Taylor arrived. We stood together and chatted and ate off of each other’s plates throughout the two hour … Read More

For What Binds Us

— Jane Hirshfield There are names for what binds us: strong forces, weak forces. Look around, you can see them: the skin that forms in a half-empty cup, nails rusting into the places they join, joints dovetailed on their own weight. The way things stay so solidly wherever they’ve been set down— and gravity, scientists say, is weak. And see … Read More

You can choose to be happy right now

For two years, I was blind. A dug out ditch. An empty pocket. A life support system for my beautiful child and my work and my family of animals. I staggered from day to night to day with no joy, no sense of anticipation, no hope. I struggled mightily to crawl toward those things, but I kept slipping backwards into … Read More

The Guest House

—Jelaluddin Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.  A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may … Read More

In the Words of a Three-Year-Old

About a month or so after our divorce was finalized, Teddy started preschool. Until that time, for the first three years of his life, he had been cared for by our beloved nanny at home while I worked from home. When Teddy entered public life, so did my divorce. Into an intimate community of in-tact families our little, leaky boat … Read More

Because He Asked me To

In the dream, I said yes to the man who asked me to marry him. I had just signed my divorce papers, and somehow this man appeared. I did not know him well or find him attractive or have much to say to him. But he asked me to marry him, and somehow I felt more responsible to his desire … Read More

Know Thy Process

Nearly a year after our divorce was finalized, Pete told me he wanted more parenting time. Imagine a cartoon character whose eyes pop out of their sockets and whose skull flies open to release explosion smoke, and you’ll get the picture of how I felt about this request. In the two months it took for us to put a new … Read More

First Law of Thermodynamics

My son begins to notice other kids have one home with two parents in it. We are driving and he wants to know why Daddy can’t live with us. The oil tanker is all mirror. It returns us stretched wide to ourselves. I never wanted to be moving forward in all directions at once, but here we are, inverted, the … Read More