Choosing Freedom

I thought about writing about my recent conversation with my brother-in-law, in which he reached the conclusion that he is no longer comfortable having his kids around me and my husband, but the sun is shining, and I had a happy check up with my midwife this morning and I don’t feel like the somber tone required for discussing the break up of a family over religion….

I thought about writing about my mother’s pre-holiday phone calls, and the painful awkwardness of our shallow relationship, so cautiously navigated, like walking a tightrope over a pit of snakes, but I’m reveling in my first “maternity” dress – a floral 70’s inspired maxi dress for 17 bucks at H&M, and my belly is starting to bump up in a way that might, to the discerning eye, look more like baby and less like the digestive remains of two party-sized bags of red hot spicy blue chips and a package of licorice, so I don’t feel like the delving into the hurtful disappointments of my mother’s choice of culture and god over her daughter….

Today may be tax day, and the day of the first Passover seder and the anniversary of the devastating San Francisco  earthquake of 1906, but it’s also a Monday, a bright, new day in a free country, and spring is laying out its warm welcome, beckoning us  into the long days of great weather, skimpy clothing and carefree walks in the warm twilight….