Story
One can bear anything if one can put it in a story. - Isak Dinesen
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Never Say Never
I always told my English students to avoid using cliches in their writing. I accused cliches of sounding predictable and boring. I encouraged my young aspiring writers to strive for fresh words and intelligence in their writing styles. Don’t misunderstand me here – I thoroughly believe that avoiding cliches in writing is still good advice. And working to find new ways to say old ideas is still worthy of the challenge it requires. But I guess it’s also true that cliches are cliches for a reason. (I also instructed my students to never start sentences with “and” but some grammar rules are acceptable to bend in certain situations.) A cliche…
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It’s Official – I Am A Parent
This is an older piece from the early days ………… When was it that I officially became a parent? Was it when I adopted my first daughter? Was it when I gave birth to my second daughter? Or was it when I licked my finger and rubbed smeared banana off my then seven-year-old daughter’s chin? What about the time I used my pinky finger to dislodge a booger dangling from my infant daughter’s nostril? Did parenthood claim me that Saturday morning I found myself in the dressing room at a department store, sitting on the bench as the official coat hanger, taking the clothes off the hangers and re-hanging them…
