Fran Wescott

Little Big Adventures The kids used to give me a hard time about how I defined an “adventure.” An adventure was to me the lens through which even an everyday event might be seen as extraordinary. But they would cut their eyes at me, shake their heads and assure me “No, Mom – getting lost on the way to a new grocery store does not constitute an adventure.” I beg to differ. So, last week when we endeavored to do our own thing during spring break, I had what I would call an adventure. While the older of the two young’uns took off on her own journey, we remaining three headed to the foothills of the North Carolina mountains for a week of camping. Our first afternoon there, The Boy and I decided to get a feel for our surroundings with a walk on one of the trails that originates not far from our camp site. We picked our way through the woods, making note of where we were in relation to the lake, weaving back and forth on the well-worn footpath that traced the undulating shoreline. I...

Stepping into the Circle, Stepping into the Ring I find that I’m turning these days to the internet for a view of what’s going on in the big, wide world. I can choose to read great, long articles laced with links and gorgeous photographs. Or, I can get my news in petite, digestible bites.  One of my recent internet finds was a primer on how online authors and commenters should engage on issues of equity when they write from a position of privilege. I am a woman of many layers of privilege: I’m white, I’m the 4 th generation of college-educated women, I get to do work that’s meaningful to me, and I have enough money to purchase exactly the brand of shampoo that makes my super-short, coarsening, red hair stand at age-defying attention. So when I stumbled on this internet gem it seemed important to me that I try to do a better job of reaching around my privilege to address equity in online exchanges.    The writer of this article provided useful vocabulary, what a...

The Beginning I am a mother of “big” chirrens (as we say in the South). Our boy started high school this year and his big sister is a Senior. I have discovered that I am largely vestigial as a care-giver, entertaining questions about how much parenting is “enough” and whether I’m asking too much when I look for a hug, or company at the grocery store or information about plans.  Mom and Dad are neighbors just 6 miles down the road. They are beginning a new chapter of their own. They grapple with aging in place, how to manage changes in physical capacities and maintain a healthy independence. They are a true love story. As different as Mom and I might be in some ways, I’m taking mental notes and learning her particular gift for loving fiercely. And no one has more grit than my mother. She’s a marvel. Dad is a man who for decades would “sweeten” his coffee with the very tip of my mother’s finger, kissing it afterwards as if to lift lingering drops of either coffee or sugar. H...