Summer on its way

After a busy, jet setting May I'm looking forward to a calmer June. Though my frequent flyer miles will keep stacking up this summer. The first couple of weeks will find me at home cheering Annabelle on to the end of sixth grade, seeing friends and plays in NYC, and catching my breath. Then summer begins with Annabelle and I heading to Aspen (Aspen Words for me, camp for her), Castle Hill in Truro, Chautauqua, Paris, and Dingle Ireland. 

My teaching schedule will be posted on my website soon. But my book tour schedule for The Book That Matters Most, which is published August 9, is there now! Lots of exciting events ahead! So I'll take this pause in travel to read and knit and cook and laugh with Annabelle. 

Hope to see you in the classroom or at a book event in the next few months!

Cuba!

Just home from amazing Cuba! Truly amazing. 

Highlights:

Spending 10 days with Alden Jones and Tim Weed and our fabulous group of writers. 

Roast pig. 

Bike taxis. 

Havana Havana Havana. 

Club Havana 7 year rum. 

Seeing sigourney weaver at San cristobal last night. 

Buena Vista Social Club. 

The dancers, the painters, the singers

Laughing. A lot. 

Crying. A lot. 

Cigars. 

Hemingway. 

The people. 

Che. 

The story. 

Palm trees and tamarind trees everywhere. 

Sugar cane coffee stirrers. 

The bus. 

The old cars. Of course. 

Mojitos. Free!

The old elevator in our hotel. 

Hemingway daiquiris. 

Well. Everything. 

Pictures are posted on Facebook and Instagram. But here's two. 

Happy Mother's Day

These simple holidays, when flowers and greeting cards are everywhere, can slay us. I'm sitting here on a chilly morning remembering the first Mother's Day after Grace had died just three short weeks earlier. How I sat stunned holding tulips. How I could not wrap my brain around any of what had swept through my family and knocked us to our knees. 

Today, children of all ages without mothers and mothers without their children will mean a kick in the heart. 

But I hope too we can celebrate what we had. The joys of a mother's hug, her hand on our fevered foreheads, her happy face. The joys of our child's hand in ours, her voice saying Mama, her curled up on our laps. 

Typically on Mother's Day I post a picture of my feisty fabulous 84 year old mother, Gogo. But today I posted pictures of my three kids: Sam, Grace, and Annabelle. I posted them with gratitude. And a heart overflowing with love.