It seems to me that people come to blogs looking for one of three things: answers, inspiration, or solidarity. I have my moments for providing answers–at least, as they have revealed themselves in my life–and inspiration. But the truth is that I often wrestle with questions that have no easy answers. This is my place…
Read MoreAll articles filed in love
Ordinary Love
I am hopeless romantic at heart–a sucker for a great kiss in a movie or a book, hopelessly sentimental about stories where new love is found alongside other adventures. But I’m also becoming ever more aware of how easy it is to take an oversimplified, overdramatized, and romanticized view of love and trying to measure…
Read MoreTrue Love Looks Like…
True love looks like deciding together not to bother with cards for Valentine’s Day, since we always forget anyway. True love looks like arguing over college funding, ten years in advance. True love looks like straightening the living room before piano students arrive. True love looks like crying in each other’s arms at the words…
Read MoreHow To Fight
If my husband is upset, he cannot eat. But he can always, always sleep. If I am upset, I can always eat. But I cannot sleep. Therein lies the challenge for us in conflict resolution. Before we got married we were required to attend Engaged Encounter. One of the resource couples that weekend laid out…
Read MoreMarriage Has Made Me Free
The other day, Christian looked up from Discover magazine and chuckled. “Guess what?” he said. “73% of Discover readers think humans are meant to be polyamorous.” I confess: I rolled my eyes. Monogamy can be a challenge, I’ll grant you, but the alternative causes such pain and dysfunction, so much emotional scarring for the adults…
Read MoreFiction: Stardust
It began on a magical night beside the river Thames… or so my mother tells me. There was a twenty-car pileup and my parents were stranded in the fallout as her labor gained momentum. By sheer dumb luck, there was an OB three cars up and one to the left. An hour later, I came…
Read MoreSex, Love, and Women’s Fiction
I’ve been reading a lot of women’s fiction lately, and reading it with a more critical eye than is usual for me. As I contemplate the novel query stage, I’m analyzing how my book fits into what’s already out there. There’s a lot of really good writing out there: great character depth and engrossing storytelling.…
Read MoreReality Beats the Fairy Tale All To Pieces
When I was ten, I thought I was going to go to Calcutta and be one of Mother Teresa’s nuns. Well, anyway, some kind of a nun. I remember spending one whole library visit looking through the lists of religious orders and seeing which ones sounded the most exciting. By the time I was in…
Read MoreMotherhood Fears
I sent my boys off on a trip this morning. For the next thirty-six hours, it’s just me, my girl and my baby. I’m not used to this. It’s always the other way around: me taking the whole crew for a day trip and leaving Christian behind. A few weeks ago, he took them all…
Read MoreBigger Than Me
After two blissful weeks of uninterrupted sleep, Michael started waking to nurse again. I took it philosophically, because I’d been expecting it–I’ve said often enough that sleeping through the night is a myth–and these days he mixes it up; a night or two on, a night or two off. This was an “on” night, and…
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Kathleen M. Basi 