Author - The Durango Herald

‘The kids will appreciate this when they’re older’

We’re at 10,500 feet, tents tucked in the tall spruce, the La Plata River bending clear and cold below us. Wildflowers splatter the slopes like a Jackson Pollack painting. Dan rigs tarps fro...

DATE: Jul 19, 2014 | CATEGORY: Adventures in Motherhood

Kids’ brain architecture makes them built to come alive

We’re free-falling into summer. The kids are a grubby blur. I catch them scarfing fistfuls of garden peas and think, daily vegetable consumption: Check. Dan calls from work with ...

DATE: Jul 4, 2014 | CATEGORY: Adventures in Motherhood

Camping trip shows differences between kids and adults

We took the kids on their first backpacking trip last weekend. And it was just like that – our decades-old notion of backpacking colliding with little people who would squeeze entertainment ...

DATE: Jun 14, 2014 | CATEGORY: Adventures in Motherhood

‘Let me be a mountain of love and firm boundaries’

Rose and I are walking home, hand in hand, when she asks, “Does everything have a shadow?” Me: “Yes.” Rose: “Not pigment.” Me: “What?” Rose: “Pigm...

DATE: May 31, 2014 | CATEGORY: Adventures in Motherhood

Playing is training for finding your passion as an adult

Five years ago, before a hunting trip, Dan unloaded a pile of found junk (from the annual trash clean-up) into the backyard, promising me uninterrupted coffee and newspaper time while the ki...

DATE: May 17, 2014 | CATEGORY: Adventures in Motherhood

Weekly hike allows us to watch life unfold in present moment

Col and I are walking down the hard-packed trail, bits of spring pushing up through dry oak leaves. I am answering his two-part question. First: When were you embarrassed as a child? Second:...

DATE: May 3, 2014 | CATEGORY: Adventures in Motherhood

Sometimes it’s good to get out in the desert and simply ‘be’

Getting to the desert was like a backwards game of Twister – untangling ourselves from work, homestead responsibilities, the comfort of warm beds and stocked fridges. There’s alw...

DATE: Apr 19, 2014 | CATEGORY: Adventures in Motherhood

‘Peaceful parenting’ a practice worth deepening

We’re in the car, returning from celebrating the Jewish holiday, Purim, at Temple Har Shalom. We’ve had a fun night, including participating in the rowdy re-enactment of the Purim story and ...

DATE: Apr 5, 2014 | CATEGORY: Adventures in Motherhood

Trust siblings to work out their own mysterious karma

Yesterday, outside: Col on skateboard, Rose on scooter, me performing the Winter Olympic event of soaking up the low-slung sun. Rose ditches her scooter and somehow finagles the first two la...

DATE: Mar 15, 2014 | CATEGORY: Adventures in Motherhood

For daughter, information is like a wide, swirling storm

Rose and I are in an outdoor public restroom, trying to take care of business without pondering too deeply the dark, wet stain on the concrete floor. Rose is singing cheerily in an invented ...

DATE: Mar 1, 2014 | CATEGORY: Adventures in Motherhood

Sometimes, being seen without judgment can be enough

They’re like weather systems, children’s emotions. The clouds move in with a sniffly hiccup, a lip-quivery frown, and soon escalate like a tornado ripping across the plains. Sometimes I want...

DATE: Feb 15, 2014 | CATEGORY: Adventures in Motherhood

Children’s constant moving forward a lesson in impermanence

The most mystical part of parenting is this passage of time, the way children accumulate years to their very person, like geological layers. I’m always so blindsided: “What? Another birthday...

DATE: Feb 1, 2014 | CATEGORY: Adventures in Motherhood