The first time I found one, I had just downed a can of Arizona Iced Tea. Sweet, soft on the back of my throat, ice cold and only 99 cents, it seemed to me the best deal in drinks. I needed it. It was August in Massachusetts, and the air was hazy and heavy around […]

There are few things worse than feeling lonely. Loneliness comes, in my experience, from the most surprising places. You can have a stable of caring, supporting friends, a solid family, a husband, a sister, a cat, and you can still feel it. Because loneliness does not always come from the outside. Sometimes it crawls into […]

PDXX I cherish my children. Even when they drive me crazy. Even when I simultaneously wish for more and less time in the day. Even when I am up all night, unable to sleep because they cause me so much angst. They were different when they were babies. Once they got a little older, once […]

New York Times Motherlode Blog, December 18,2014.

PDXX Background: I have been trying to figure out how to live as a parent/partner/woman who is always in remission. I have had multiple surgeries from my thyroid cancer, crohns disease and general over ability to produce tissue and tumors.  * One of the most noticeable scars runs hip to hip. It’s not straight, though […]

“A nail’s first responsibility is to be red.” Stella heard her mother’s voice in the back of her head as she assessed her candy apple manicure. She wasn’t wrong, that mother of hers. Swathed in a color mostly seen on hot summer day convertibles, her nails took on a personality of their own. Ready. Stella […]

New York Times Motherlode Blog, August 11, 2013

PDXX Stephanie was my student. I helped to teach her Writing class, in an elective offered through her suburban public school. Stephanie was sixteen when I met her, and eighteen when we parted ways. Her writing was flimsy when we began, and with many iterations of feedback, suggestions and support, it got markedly better the […]

I am really good at growing things. When I was 16, I found a small, round marble under my right nipple. When I was 22, I was brave enough to have it removed. When I was 23, I found out I had been growing all of this extra inflamed tissue in my intestines, rendering me […]

PDXX The other day, I got a phone call: “Don’t worry Francesca, everything is fine.” Our babysitter never calls me. Never. We have a deluge of lighthearted texts through out the day – she sends me pictures of our baby, I smile and say thanks a lot. But she never calls. So when I saw […]