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Compass of the heart
“It is the wilderness in the mind, the desert wastes in the heart, through which one wanders lost and a stranger. When one is a stranger to oneself, then one is estranged from others, too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.” ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea Anne Morrow Lindbergh earned her reputation as a fearless aviator and explorer. At the same time, the diaries and books she wrote were maps of her emotional journey. In her nonfiction classic, Gift from the Sea, she charted ways to navigate the challenging terrain of marriage, work, and motherhood. We lose ourselves when we spend our…
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Happy Mother’s Day
“Motherhood is a choice you make everyday, to put someone else’s happiness and well-being ahead of your own, to teach the hard lessons, to do the right thing even when you’re not sure what the right thing is…and to forgive yourself, over and over again, for doing everything wrong.” ~Donna Ball Photo by Cindy La Ferle
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Why Mom needs a spring break
“By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.” ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh Few people need a spring vacation more than caregivers and moms with young kids. In Metro Parent, I share a memory of my visit to Captiva Island, where Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote her classic seaside meditation, Gift from the Sea — a book that has resonated with meaning throughout the parenting and caregiving stages of my life. You can read the essay online here. Photo by Cindy La Ferle
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Mother’s Day “Ideals”
Ideals magazine was launched in 1944 with a Christmas issue compiled by Van B. Hooper, a public relations manager for a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, manufacturer. Over the years it has featured the writings of well-known authors such as Edgar Guest, Sue Monk Kidd, Chris Bohjalian, Susan Allen Toth, Garrison Keillor, and many others. Now produced by Guideposts, the magazine continues its celebration of American holidays with timeless stories, quotations, poetry, recipes, and fine art illustrations. Since 2008, several of my own essays (including a few from my book, Writing Home) have been published in several issues of Ideals and its hardcover gift anthologies. This spring, my essay describing my son’s first year away from home (“Field…
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The family columnist
We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.” ~Stacia Tauscher Using our kids as fodder for Facebook posts, blog posts, or newspaper columns is hardly new. But it was a thought-provoking exercise for me to revisit my own column-writing days in a “Home Forum” essay for The Christian Science Monitor. While I approached the piece with a light hand, some darker issues lurked between the lines. How much ink is appropriate to give our kids? Are we bragging or exploiting? How do we know if we’ve overstepped personal boundaries or violated our children’s privacy? Please click here to read the essay.…