There may be a job shortage of epic proportions going on, but as the holiday season slouches towards us, it’s clear that there’s no shortage of kin work. “Kin work” is the term anthropologists use to describe the “conception, maintenance, and ritual celebration of cross boundary kin ties”. I found that definition on the back…
The Liminal Stage
What’s in a Name?
When I was a little girl someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. So I sat down and made a list. High on it (below “shoe-shopper” but above bookstore clerk) was the following ambition: I wanted to be in charge of naming nail polishes and lipsticks. At first glance that…
The Naked Truth
More people have seen me topless in the last two months than in my entire life leading up to this point–and I’m including the first five years or so when I ran around many a Greek beach in nothing but a diaper. I came to this realization last week when I opened the door for…
Let There Be Light!
I have a window of opportunity (that is to say, a sleeping baby) and I had an entirely different blog planned (fear not, it will make its appearance soon). But I keep getting messages about Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, and I am not one to ignore summons from the universe. First, a few…
‘Tis the Season
Having grown up in Athens–where there were ritual greetings for every occasion, including the first day of each month–and in New England, which does the change of the seasons more intensely than any other U.S. region I know, I’ve been missing Fall here in Miami Beach, which alternates between hot and rainy pretty much year…
Fabulous at 40 (days)
Life begins at 40…or so birthday cards and makeup aimed at “mature skin” would have us believe. But there does seem to be something magical and mystical about the 40 day mark for infants. And the more I look into it, the more I realize that it marks the end of a liminal stage; after…