Category: Mothers & Daughters

My girleens

Life with Small

July 5 I always gain little insights into my wee self, past and present, when I’m back in the land of my birth. For example, did you know I am stubborn? I can’t count the times Small has told me so, as she did today. It seems, however, that our respective definitions of the word have little overlap. Ginna’s perspective: “Stubborn” is when your mother has a painful and unstable ankle that rolls inward, a […]

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93 & Me

Today is a Very Important Day, for it marks the initial appearance 93 years ago of Small N. Allison. At the exact second I sat down to begin this entry, Ralph Stanley’s haunting, high-lonesome tenor carried over my computer’s speakers as he keened his classic Mother’s Not Dead, She’s Only a’Sleepin’.  Stop! It’s not time for that! For I have the great good fortune of having my own Small right over there, just spitting-distance away […]

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Over the River and Through the Woods

I can’t believe it: after all these weeks of anticipation, Lulu’s and my short trip is already a memory. Let me tell you about the rest of it. Saturday morning we sat around and drank lots of tea and coffee. When Molly attempted to capture a documentary snapshot of the inside of our AirBnB, I leapt into the frame to photobomb her. Despite all that caffeine, the two of us couldn’t come to a decision […]

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Life in the Time of Coronavirus

On January 20, 2020, Eleni and I exchanged texts: Eleni: I’m feeling vaguely, constantly anxious [about medical concerns she’d had at the time]. Thanks for asking. I wrote a list of all the upcoming challenges so I can cross them off as we go: ultrasound results, poss. biopsy, biopsy results, telling mom I’m pregnant again… Ginna: You’re [expletive deleted] kidding, right? Eleni: Nope. Sorry. Nine months later (a few days ago) she wrote to me: […]

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