Rita Arens

I don't know why it is suddenly so important for me to suck what's left from summer. My lawn is so burned out it coughs clouds of dust in my face when I try to mow down the hardy weeds that adore drought and heat. My daughter is bored of the swimming pool. "But Mommy," she says. "We ALWAYS go to the swimming pool."  Read more

I have this friend -- we'll call her "Lisa" -- who has a teenaged son. She told me the teenaged-ness had come on very suddenly, and she was, in a word, maddened by the shift from a child with whom she'd previously had a mindmeld relationship to one whom she barely recognized.  Read more

This week I sent my daughter off to first grade. She's a happy, well adjusted kid. Sort of not at all like I was.  Read more

And then we left, fighting the tide back through the families, mothers in surgical scrubs and dads in khakis, sweaty kids with wild eyes, smiling teachers and administrators dressed to kill. My husband took my daughter, and as I walked to the car through air thick as a washcloth, I let the tears roll down my cheeks. People probably thought I was upset about her going to school, but that wasn't it, not really.  Read more

And if it were me? I'd want to sit down with my husband and daughter and prepare them for the disease, exactly what was going to happen to me, how I not only would not know who they were, but I might hate them. I might be angry or irritable on a daily basis. I might push them away as though they were total strangers. I might break their hearts to the extent they wished I would die and leave them alone to grieve who I was instead of having to face every day who I'd become, the thing I'd become. I'd want to tell them over and over how much I loved them, make videos and tape recordings of me saying that, over and over, I love you, I love you, I love you. Please remember me like this. Don't listen to me if I ask you who you are. Remember me like this, full and whole and sharp and soft and here.  Read more