Hundreds of angry hornets, acting on their natural instinct to protect the nest, swarmed around the landscape crew. They had cut down a dead tree along the walking trail above the driveway and discovered the tree was occupied. As the crew quit the site, I grabbed my phone and called our exterminator. The next day, the exterminator arrived and said, “The hornets entered the tree through a knothole and hollowed out the tree. Since the tree fell on that knothole, it’s going to be a little tricky killing the hornets. Tell the landscape crew not to cut until I come back next week to make sure the hornets are no longer active.” I understood the hornet’s natural tendency to protect the community—I’ve done it myself. A few years ago, I was standing on a busy street corner in New York City when I heard a woman’s frantic shout, “Emmanuel! Wait! Stop,” and the pit-pat-pit-pat sound of a child’s sandals hitting pavement, coming from behind me. I looked at the “do not walk” traffic sign and turned to confirm what I suspected was happening. “Stop, stop! Emmanuel!” yelled the slender young woman, pushing an empty stroller and running desperately. The scampering child, I guessed two years old, stopped on the sidewalk two feet from me. He gazed back at the young woman and tossed his black silky curls. Then his dark eyes widened, and his mouth hinted an impish grin. “Emmanuel!” the young woman shrieked. She was still several yards away. He jerked as if to take off running again, this time into the street. I grabbed his baby fat arm. Then I looked at the woman and said, “I’ve got him!” “No,” he cried, trying to squirm away from me. The young woman arrived two long seconds later. “Thank you,” she said to me while taking the boy’s hand. “She scared me,” I heard him say to the young woman as they walked away. “You scared me,” she replied. “You can’t be running away from me, Emmanuel, it’s not safe.” I was sorry to have frightened him, but he, his mother, and I were only doing what was natural.
The other day I overheard my partner conversing with our dog in our workroom, making sweet, cooing noises. For a moment it struck me as silly, but then I thought, that’s exactly what I do. I probably make more silly, baby-like noises with the dog than I ever did with my own children. She is our first dog as a family. Though my partner and I grew up partly around dogs, our human-dog bonds were never this strong. What she gives to us is probably much more than we give to her, I imagine, for we have benefitted profoundly. The calming effect stroking a dog has on people is well documented. This and her unquestioning companionship helped us immensely during the covid years, and as a couple and family in general. She welcomes our affection eagerly at all times. She is our reason to set aside our computers, go outdoors, and converse with dog-loving strangers. She allows simple play to become part of our daily routine. True to her description, she loves sitting on my lap, or at least within hand’s reach. That the dog-human relationship is tens of thousands of years old is easy to believe. It all feels so natural.
I don’t dye my hair. I like the colour and besides, it’s too dark to dye without using bleach. Sometimes I wonder if I’d be completely different with blonde hair. Not ditsy or vivacious – stereotypes – just a different person.
I worked in Greece for a few months, the summer I turned 19, with my blonde friend from uni. One week, we befriended a British couple there on holiday. The wife was very glam with bleached white-blonde hair. We went out with them a few times. One night, I remember leaning against the bar with the couple, all three of us watching as my blonde friend was chatted up and danced with.
The wife looked at me sympathetically. “Maybe you should dye your hair blonde,” she said.
It’s very telling how many more women than men hide their natural colour. I sometimes forget that my mum and my cousin, who have been blonde for as long as I can remember, would be brunettes if they stopped dying their hair. My boyfriend, on the other hand, went completely grey in his early 30s and doesn't mind. I’ve never met a grey-haired woman younger than 65.
Little Pete casually invited me to his weekly routine at the sports facility outside Bruges. To be fair, I did receive warning this wasn’t just a normal recreation center equipped with gym, spa, and pool. This place was special because of its dress code: au natural, naked. I was 19, into doing things that took me out of my comfort zone, so we went. The trip to the nude gym reverted me back to my natural, desired state. There are plenty of family photographs which prove I was a child averse to wearing clothes of any kind. Old Kodaks of me running nude through Nana and Grandpop’s house, climbing trees in the buff, skinny-dipping in pools, ponds, and lakes. Clothing arrived later when the elementary years hit. I reluctantly had to put my big-boy pants on. For the first few grades, I would only wear sweatpants. No jeans, no slacks, just soft, smooth sweats. That phase ended when I learned that fashion sense directly correlated to popularity. From then on, it was silk shirts and designer cords. I think my parents preferred the natural, less expensive tastes of my youth.
Planning an at-home birth with a camera tripod fixated on my lady parts while immersed in a tub of my own fluids and a damp cloth draped on my forehead as my midwife judiciously directs me to breathe, breathe, breathe while I push, push, push without any medication, was a fantasy.
The closest I came to having a natural childbirth involved my divorced parents, anchored on either side of me, watching their first grandchild enter the world. Nothing unusual—I had a Pitocin drip and an epidural before the nurse removed my catheter; my father pressed my left knee to my ear and forced me to push while I screamed, “I can’t push anymore!” And my mother fed me ice chips and cheered me to “keep going,” while my then husband videotaped the doctor’s hands carefully removing our daughter from the canal.
I respect those mothers who can endure natural childbirth. I couldn’t. My first experience of giving birth was unconventional, but purposeful and proper.
Hundreds of angry hornets, acting on their natural instinct to protect the nest, swarmed around the landscape crew. They had cut down a dead tree along the walking trail above the driveway and discovered the tree was occupied. As the crew quit the site, I grabbed my phone and called our exterminator. The next day, the exterminator arrived and said, “The hornets entered the tree through a knothole and hollowed out the tree. Since the tree fell on that knothole, it’s going to be a little tricky killing the hornets. Tell the landscape crew not to cut until I come back next week to make sure the hornets are no longer active.” I understood the hornet’s natural tendency to protect the community—I’ve done it myself. A few years ago, I was standing on a busy street corner in New York City when I heard a woman’s frantic shout, “Emmanuel! Wait! Stop,” and the pit-pat-pit-pat sound of a child’s sandals hitting pavement, coming from behind me. I looked at the “do not walk” traffic sign and turned to confirm what I suspected was happening. “Stop, stop! Emmanuel!” yelled the slender young woman, pushing an empty stroller and running desperately. The scampering child, I guessed two years old, stopped on the sidewalk two feet from me. He gazed back at the young woman and tossed his black silky curls. Then his dark eyes widened, and his mouth hinted an impish grin. “Emmanuel!” the young woman shrieked. She was still several yards away. He jerked as if to take off running again, this time into the street. I grabbed his baby fat arm. Then I looked at the woman and said, “I’ve got him!” “No,” he cried, trying to squirm away from me. The young woman arrived two long seconds later. “Thank you,” she said to me while taking the boy’s hand. “She scared me,” I heard him say to the young woman as they walked away. “You scared me,” she replied. “You can’t be running away from me, Emmanuel, it’s not safe.” I was sorry to have frightened him, but he, his mother, and I were only doing what was natural.
The other day I overheard my partner conversing with our dog in our workroom, making sweet, cooing noises. For a moment it struck me as silly, but then I thought, that’s exactly what I do. I probably make more silly, baby-like noises with the dog than I ever did with my own children. She is our first dog as a family. Though my partner and I grew up partly around dogs, our human-dog bonds were never this strong. What she gives to us is probably much more than we give to her, I imagine, for we have benefitted profoundly. The calming effect stroking a dog has on people is well documented. This and her unquestioning companionship helped us immensely during the covid years, and as a couple and family in general. She welcomes our affection eagerly at all times. She is our reason to set aside our computers, go outdoors, and converse with dog-loving strangers. She allows simple play to become part of our daily routine. True to her description, she loves sitting on my lap, or at least within hand’s reach. That the dog-human relationship is tens of thousands of years old is easy to believe. It all feels so natural.
I don’t dye my hair. I like the colour and besides, it’s too dark to dye without using bleach. Sometimes I wonder if I’d be completely different with blonde hair. Not ditsy or vivacious – stereotypes – just a different person.
I worked in Greece for a few months, the summer I turned 19, with my blonde friend from uni. One week, we befriended a British couple there on holiday. The wife was very glam with bleached white-blonde hair. We went out with them a few times. One night, I remember leaning against the bar with the couple, all three of us watching as my blonde friend was chatted up and danced with.
The wife looked at me sympathetically. “Maybe you should dye your hair blonde,” she said.
It’s very telling how many more women than men hide their natural colour. I sometimes forget that my mum and my cousin, who have been blonde for as long as I can remember, would be brunettes if they stopped dying their hair. My boyfriend, on the other hand, went completely grey in his early 30s and doesn't mind. I’ve never met a grey-haired woman younger than 65.
Little Pete casually invited me to his weekly routine at the sports facility outside Bruges. To be fair, I did receive warning this wasn’t just a normal recreation center equipped with gym, spa, and pool. This place was special because of its dress code: au natural, naked. I was 19, into doing things that took me out of my comfort zone, so we went. The trip to the nude gym reverted me back to my natural, desired state. There are plenty of family photographs which prove I was a child averse to wearing clothes of any kind. Old Kodaks of me running nude through Nana and Grandpop’s house, climbing trees in the buff, skinny-dipping in pools, ponds, and lakes. Clothing arrived later when the elementary years hit. I reluctantly had to put my big-boy pants on. For the first few grades, I would only wear sweatpants. No jeans, no slacks, just soft, smooth sweats. That phase ended when I learned that fashion sense directly correlated to popularity. From then on, it was silk shirts and designer cords. I think my parents preferred the natural, less expensive tastes of my youth.
Planning an at-home birth with a camera tripod fixated on my lady parts while immersed in a tub of my own fluids and a damp cloth draped on my forehead as my midwife judiciously directs me to breathe, breathe, breathe while I push, push, push without any medication, was a fantasy.
The closest I came to having a natural childbirth involved my divorced parents, anchored on either side of me, watching their first grandchild enter the world. Nothing unusual—I had a Pitocin drip and an epidural before the nurse removed my catheter; my father pressed my left knee to my ear and forced me to push while I screamed, “I can’t push anymore!” And my mother fed me ice chips and cheered me to “keep going,” while my then husband videotaped the doctor’s hands carefully removing our daughter from the canal.
I respect those mothers who can endure natural childbirth. I couldn’t. My first experience of giving birth was unconventional, but purposeful and proper.