February 4th, 2009

Daughter Does a Good Deed, So Does Mom

I sort the clothes into piles of colored and white.  I’m going to have to wash this stuff first before I pack it up.  What was this girl thinking?  That’s the point  – she wasn’t thinking.  I mean how many sweaters, pairs of pants and T-shirts can one girl have?  She’s got more clothes than her sister and I put together.

             I’m trying to make some order in my twenty-four year old daughter’s bedroom.  I kick my way through the multi-colored array of shoes scattered around her floor.  Really, how many pairs of heels does one need?  Of course, I have only a couple of pairs myself.  

“You could use some heels, Mom,” she once chided me. “Kind of update your look!”

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By Marilee Stark

November 10th, 2008

Mom Tries to Retreat

I spent the first day of my writer’s residency settling into Jacqueline Mitchard’s home on Cape Cod.  It was a beautiful fall day and I could see the leaves beginning to turn shades of red and orange from my bedroom window overlooking the garden. 

I had ten days to write without distractions or responsibilities.  My two adult daughters, ages twenty-three and twenty-four, were taking care of the house and cats.  I no longer had to worry about underage drinking brawls if I was away from home.  It seemed about as good as it gets.

For the first twenty-four hours everything I did was a “pinch me” moment: from writing at my desk in my cozy bedroom to walking down the streets of Brewster with my housemate, Sarah, an eighty-year old retired journalist from Wisconsin.  This was her first experience, also with time alone to write. Before becoming a grandmother, she had been a working single mom like myself.

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By Marilee Stark