Posts Tagged Under Marianne Lonsdale
Diamonds in the Rough
One night, after our toddler was asleep, I poured wine for my husband, Michael, and me. I told him that I needed more help with Nicholas. I took his hand and explained that I didn’t want to make it sound like he wasn’t doing his part. I knew I dominated taking care of Nicholas, and I wanted to change. I thought I sounded reasonable.
Michael blew up. He jerked his hand from mine and starting pointing his index finger at me. I was bossy and always correcting him. He wanted to do more but got tired of my interfering. But what really bothered Michael, what really upset him, was he felt he’d lost his wife, his lover and his best friend. For two years, he’d watched me disappear with our son. Continue… »
By Marianne LonsdaleThe True Spirit of Community at Squaw
Jessica O’Dwyer was one of the first women I met when I joined the Writing Mamas. She introduced herself, asked me about my family and my writing and helped me feel I was in the right place. Her insecurities around the quality of her writing were weirdly reassuring to me.
We both applied for admission to the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley in 2006. Jessica was accepted. I was not. She had a tough and wonderful week and came back so overwhelmed she could not write for a short period. But Jessica had a story to tell, the story of adopting her beautiful daughter Olivia from Guatemala, and she got back to work, returning to Squaw in 2007 as a stronger writer who had found her voice.
Jessica kept moving forward, improving her writing through classes and workshops. She wrote and rewrote, searching for the story arc that would grab and hold readers. She had two young children and a husband with a demanding job. Sometimes she could only write at night in cafes or at the library after her husband got home at night and dinner had been cooked. It would have been easy to put off the book, to wait until the children got older, until there was more time to write. Continue… »
By Marianne LonsdaleWriting Mamas Keep Each Other Grounded
I’m thrilled and so honored to have been accepted into the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. And don’t tell anyone, but I’m also terrified and intimidated each day. I have to walk into a big room full of strangers a few times a day to hear speakers. I have to voice my critiques of work twice a day, advising wonderful writers what they need to do to improve their work. I have to insert myself at a table of strangers every night for dinner.
That’s the easy stuff. I also had to sit still and listen for 90 minutes while 11 other writers critiqued my novel. And I met one-on-one with one of the most well known editors in the business to get her comments on my nonfiction entry. Continue… »
By Marianne LonsdaleBike helmet…check, bike shorts….oh-oh
Well, Janine has certainly set the tone about The Writing Mamas week at the Squaw Valley Writers’ Conference. Too soon to tell about key learnings, workshop glee and despair. We’re too rummy with information and emotion right now.
I so over-packed for the conference. Six pairs of shoes – flip flops, black semi-fancy sandals, sneakers, hiking boots, and two pairs of walking shoes, one blue pair, one brown. Five pairs of pants. Two sun hats. Three notebooks – one for the workshops, one for the speakers and panel discussions and one just in case, for whatever. A 20-can box of Diet Coke. One box of 12 of my favorite mechanical pencils. I’m too lazy to get up from this table and count how many tee shirts and blouses hang in the closet. Continue… »
By Marianne LonsdaleChristmas Shopping Traditions: The Wife’s & The Husband’s
My Christmas shopping exploded when I met my husband. I’m the third of eight children and our family gift traditions were simple.
Childhood Memories of a Magical Nutcracker Past
The young girls in holiday finery caught my eye as I stepped off the escalator onto the BART platform at the Civic Center station in San Francisco.
In One Ear and then to Outer Space
I feel like I’ve had the following conversation with my husband a zillion times.
The situation: We are meeting at 1 p.m. on Thursday at our son’s school for a parent teacher conference. I need to BART from my job in San Francisco to the school in Oakland. My husband works out of our home in Oakland.
The conversation begins on Tuesday:
By Marianne LonsdaleSTOP MAKING SENSE
My son Nick, a fifth grader, had procrastinated completing his history assignment all week. Now, on a warm Saturday afternoon, he was stuck at the dining room table, reading several pages on World War I.
“Mom, why is war legal?” he asked. His face had that scrunched up puzzled look he gets when he thinks adults make up the stupidest rules.
“What do you mean?”
By Marianne LonsdaleGrief
My husband, our eleven-year old son, Nick, and I sit in straight-backed chairs, around a rectangular table. The funeral director sits at the head, explaining the decisions we need to make to take care of the remains of my husband’s father.
My son’s beloved Grandpa.
Nick sits across from me. His eyes downcast. His hands are on the table, moving from closed fists to open palms, over and over again. His hands pop into five- point stars and then ball up. I’ve never seen him do this before. A kind of restless meditation.
By adminThe Macrame P. . . .
Ah, spring is budding and the thoughts of eleven- year old boys turn to. . . well, to their dicks.
“How was school today?” I ask my son.
“Good,” Nick says.
“Did you have art class today?” I probe, trying to get a few more words out of him.
By admin
