cultural beliefs

May 9, 2011 by admin |

Almost Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is a good day to be pregnant. I would like to think that sounds poetic, like the first line of Leonard Cohen’s poem, Days of Kindness, which begins, “Greece is a good place/to look at the moon, isn’t it?” But I fear it just sounds simplistic. Yeah, mother’s day celebrates moms and…

Will Kate Middleton Eat My Daughter?

This morning my mother apologized. It’s a rare occurrence, but what was even more remarkable was the topic about which she felt guilty. “I was reading somewhere a woman remembering her mother waking her up to watch Princess Diana get married 30 years ago, and now the writer is going to wake up her own…

The Sacred and the Profane–Holy Weeks I Have Known

This Palm Sunday, Holy week started off with a bang. Actually it was a kick, more of a kickline, from the party-girl-in-utero. We had gone to church to observe the holiday and the choir was singing a hymn for the Blessing of the Palms service. This apparently inspired a frenetic, religious dance from the little…

I Come in Peace–or How I Learned to Stop Fearing Palm Sunday

Many parts of Lent are solemn, and some are downright sad; I once saw a woman crying so much during a Good Friday service on the island of Corfu that I whispered to my mother, “You should tell her it has a happy ending.” Because that’s the whole point of Easter, right? The Resurrection, the…

Love and Lent in Pittsburgh

So, I promised you that every post would not be about pregnancy. But I did not promise that every blog would not be about pregnancy’s greatest pleasure–food. (Trust me, when booze, caffeine, effective wrinkle cream, traveling to high altitudes, and various and sundry sports including windsurfing and horseback riding are off the menu for nine…

Pregnancy–the Most Liminal Stage of Them All

I’m a walking waiting room, a human transition. I’m 20 weeks pregnant, halfway to becoming a mom. It’s beyond exciting–and a little surprising, given that I got pregnant a month after getting married, and at what doctors like to call the “advanced maternal age” of 36. Actually, I lied. It’s been more than a little…