NOTE: This account of our family trip to Disney, January 2012, is going to make a lot more sense when I post the account of our recent ski trip. Stay tuned… I found myself many of the mornings of our “vacation” rising before daylight to wake, dress, and NOT feed three kids, who had a little trouble finding “the magic” before 7 a.m. (No breakfast included in the “dining” plan.) After fixing a nice in-room… Continue reading

December 2020 A week before Christmas and I’m hauling dirt. Or shoveling it, actually—all 600 pounds of it, rain-heavy even though it was tarped in a trailer, out of which boy and I are moving it. It’s been in the trailer since mid-August when our water line blew and had to be replaced—requiring hours of backbreaking labor for both Bills (to save us the big bills) and a large trenching machine. Boy was in his… Continue reading

Every Burk at the Motel liked Christmas a LOT, But the Virus, still seething and stealing, did not. It had started the year taking back all the good– The things that we want to do, things that we should, It made people fear and it made people sick— Best of all, it kept people arguing about it. “You think of Christmas as awe, magic, and wonder,” said the Virus, as it cranked up its handy… Continue reading

YURT: [yərt] NOUN, a circular tent of felt or skins on a collapsible framework, used by nomads in Mongolia, Siberia, and Turkey. I don’t know why I even bothered to put in my teeth, for surely they are about to be rattled out of my head. I stand at the top of a ravine along the edge of a wood, featuring a 1/2 mile plummet through washed-out rock bed and culminating in a mud pit… Continue reading

If you told me fourteen years ago I’d be doing math and social studies at the dining table and fixing meals in the middle of the day for a schooling-at-home child, I would have laughed. I laugh today, too, but it is more the release of a suppressed hysteria. Here he is: web cam, Chrome book, cords, speakers, charger, headphones…is there a book or a notebook in sight? How about a writing implement? Okay, yes!… Continue reading

The day after dropping off college girl. It’s not that different. Seeing the little room at the end of the hall. It’s still tidy, and tastefully decorated as always–bed made, pillows in place, enough whimsy and trappings of the girl to make you think she’s just stepped out. But also a stillness, a quiet, sleeping stillness that makes me know she is gone. Because it is Sophie’s, it is also freshly vac’ed, the waste can… Continue reading

I’m not sure the lady at the grocery store knew what to make. But hey, she asked. “Well… not so great, actually,” I respond. “I think I’m letting the big stuff get to me, you know? Stressing me out so I fret about the little stuff.” I’m rambling a little, unloading groceries onto the belt. “Oh, you got college kids?” She says as she checks, I bag. She is behind a plexiglass screen, a face… Continue reading

On the day she drives out to return her prom dress and shop for college stuff with her roommate, Sophie receives another blow. For real. She is returning the gorgeous long gown that never got worn, spinning gold into straw, which is the bizarre reversal of life these days. Taking everything known and good and exciting, and tossing it back into the pool of unknown. School opening delayed. UVA has decided to suspend its much… Continue reading

The Hike, Part II Not till we are down the mountain does Sophie tell me she wasn’t sure she could do it. Tell that to my legs and knees, which will be recovering for days from our eight-hour hike. If my thighs could move they might up and smack her. She was worried! All day I followed her up that rocky trail, 8.8 miles in as many hours, trying to keep pace with a teenager… Continue reading