Katrina Kenison's Blog, page 20

Second Journey

"The call to a second journey usually commences when unexpected change is thrust upon you, causing a crisis of feelings so great that you are stopped in your tracks."  -- Joan Anderson, The Second Journey

I first read those words about nine months ago, sitting alone in an empty kitchen, having wondered for weeks just what I was meant to do next, now that the house was built, the long-awaited book finally written and published, the sons nearly grown.

This weekend, I went to meet the woman who w...

Hand Wash Cold

[image error]One thing that happens, when you publish a book, is that dedicated, hard-working editors inevitably seek you out, in the hope of procuring an enthusiastic blurb for the back cover of some forthcoming book that is deemed to be similar in theme or appeal to your own.  As New York editor Judith Regan recently admitted, "Blurbs!  Chasing them is agony; getting one is ecstasy.  I've written more forelock-tugging, hand-wringing blurb request letters than I can count, which is just as well because I...

Publication day

The other night, I spoke to a group of women in Lexington, Massachusetts.  It was rainy and cold, the kind of night when anyone would be excused for staying home, putting the tea kettle on, going to bed early with a book.  But the room filled, my nerves quieted, and this group of mothers found plenty to say to one another.  

As always, the best part of the evening was not the formal "talk" I'd labored over for a week, but the questions that came at the end, the freewheeling conversation...

Being there

[image error]I had coffee with an old friend on Saturday, a friend I thought had vanished from my life for good. Nine years ago, Lisa's son Morgan was murdered while trying to stop a fight near his college campus.  He was twenty-one years old, three months shy of graduating with honors, engaged to be married to the girl of his dreams.  

 I first met Lisa when we brought our son Henry to her kindergarten classroom and tentatively showed her a thick file of test results confirming physical and cognitive...

How we play the game

[image error]"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game."   I know from long experience as a mother on the sidelines how easy it is to say those words to our children -- and how, although we really, really do mean it, we also (perhaps secretly) really want them to win, too. The truth is, we would prefer them to have it all, the grace under pressure, the good sportsmanship, and the sweetness of a hard-won conquest.

He looks so much like his dad, my son Jack.  I see it in the way he...

Easter

It is still dark, misty-foggy, the velvet sky reminiscent of so many other Florida dawns. Sunrise comes late on the west coast, the day revealing itself slowly.  Beyond the wide-open sliding doors: the dull tide of distant traffic, the sibilant chirrups of birds waking.  For an hour I've been lying in bed, listening to  morning sounds, trying to conjure Easter.

Hope, faith, peace.  Qualities of mind and heart that are all too elusive these days, whether I am scanning the front page of the...

Spice of Life

They have a few things in common, my sons.  There were  a couple of  years there when backyard baseball, MLB Showdown, and Magic cards were mutually beloved pastimes.  They both recall the same antipathy toward a certain elementary school Spanish teacher.  They share a passion for music, and sometimes, after dinner, Jack will tune up his guitar and they will play jazz together.  They are big on Jon Stewart  (the two of them will sit at breakfast, the laptop open between them, watching last...

Mad Men

I remember shaking a bit as I told the librarian that she could call my mother.  Twelve years old, I had just made the bold move of rejecting my old stomping ground, the Children's Room, and venturing instead into the adult stacks.  After an hour spent browsing shelves of murder mysteries and thrillers, I'd settled on John le Carre's "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold." Its black cover with bold white type struck me as quite sophisticated; the jacket references to British double agents...

Spring break

Every year since our sons were very young, our family has come to Florida for a week of visits with the grandparents and a welcome respite from the back side of winter. 

Yesterday morning, we stepped out our back door at 4:30 am, into a torrent of freezing rain, gusting wind, slush.  In darkness, eyes still sleep-sandy, we made our way along the empty, icy roads to the airport -- bright lights, security lines, hot Starbucks coffee.

As always, the contrasts of the day astonished me.  It is...

Eating alone

I am in New York City for two nights, doing a bit of literary volunteer work.  Today has been a long day, nine hours in a hotel conference room.  By the time our group is released from duty just before six, I'm ready to get outside and seize the last minutes of sunlight on the first day of the year that truly feels like spring.  

I walk twenty blocks or so with my coat flapping open, cell phone pressed to my ear like a native, checking in with every family member.  Then I slip my phone into m...