Jane Roper's Blog, page 13

The Last Five Years

A little over a week ago officially marked five years that Clio has been in remission: no perceptible cancer cells in her body.  After two years of intense treatment and three years without any signs of relapse (occasional parental freak-outs notwithstanding), it’s very, very, very, extremely, extremely likely at this point  that her cancer — the same […]

Of Novels, Monks, and Fetal Kangaroos

For the past three-and-a-half (my God, has it been that long?) years, I’ve been working on a novel.  It’s about things like class dynamics and gentrification and motherhood and addiction and, oh yeah, childhood cancer. I’ve mentioned this all here before, but sort of in a muttering-under-my-breath-and-adding-a-fake-cough kind of way, because let’s face it: It […]

Pretty soon they won’t

Every since my girls were babies, these four words have periodically — well, often, actually — popped into my head, paired with the things the girls do or love or need at any given time. Things that are so routine I hardly notice them, until I do. Because I realize that even as they’re here, they’re on the […]

The Old Country

I confess: I’m not feeling super-compelled to write a blog post. But I really really wanted to get that post-Trump-grief post off the front of my website, because enough already. I mean, not enough with the fury and dismay over our national disaster in chief. I’m still mad as hell about that, and still working hard to fight for […]

Grieving, committing, hoping

When Clio was diagnosed with cancer, my body felt it : Dread and fear that clutched my stomach and weighted my limbs and hampered my breath on the way up out of my lungs. Grief that forced tears up through the hollows of my face and cave of my throat and made my heart feel like something bloated and raw. A narcissistic, possibly unhinged man […]

Help me write, Sol LeWitt

I just got back from an incredibly productive week out in Western Massachusetts at Wellspring House, working on the first (well, first and a half) major revision of my novel. I like rewriting and revising infinitely more than first-drafting, which I find akin to squeezing blood from a stone. I mean, in the first draft you […]

Talk Less. Smile More.

It’s what Aaron Burr says to Alexander Hamilton when they first meet in the musical Hamilton, which we are currently somewhat obsessed with in the Roper-Moock household. When Burr’s character says it, it’s meant to illustrate the contrast between him Hamilton—Burr’s M.O. is “don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for,” while Hamilton’s is […]

Put ’em in a pickle jar

I remember people, mostly older women, I think, saying that when I was a kid: “I wish I could put you in a pickle jar!” I always pictured one of those pickled people jars (Exhibit A), which I guess were big around the time people said it, that being the mid 80s. That seemed like a […]

Writing is fun. Sort of.

“Dear mom. I hope you had a great time in Virginia. Did you do anything exciting? Or did you just write?” Thus began an email I received this week while away at VCCA, a writers’ and artists’ colony in Virginia. And from a phone conversation with the girls: “How come you get to go fun places and... Read the Rest »

Middle-Aged Kids

The girls just turned nine, which in child years, if you think about it, is middle aged: Halfway to eighteen. (Eighteen being a somewhat arbitrary number except that it’s when the girls will head to college or elsewhere most likely.) The parallels with adult middle age pretty much end there, because as far as I can... Read the Rest »