Food • 

Here is my ideal January soup. It’s the one I come back to, again and again, in the blur of my post-holiday malaise when my body craves fresh and wholesome things, but my heart dwells on the richness of…

Lately

  • Life • 

    December 5, 2012: My 25th birthday. A and I spread an old comforter on the grass in Alamo Square park and stretch our bodies into the waning sunlight. We feel the gentle crunch of fallen leaves underneath us as we lay down, padded by the layer of polyester fill and…

  • Books • 

    I’m always surprised by how much certain books shape my memories. For instance, I cannot imagine my family trip to France this year without The Ensemble by Aja Gabel. It’s as if the four main characters ate croissants by the fountain in The Tuileries and watched the sun set over…

  • Life • 

    My daughter has just learned the word, twinkle. She whispers Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in my ear at night, when I carry her upstairs to her bath, pleased with herself that she knows all the lyrics. On our way to preschool, I put on one of my favorite songs by…

ABOUT ME

I ask big questions and complain about how the laundry is never finished. Sometimes in the same sentence. Welcome.

I’m Renae. I’m a writer, a mom, and above all, an observer. I like to pause on the things that move me, to dwell on my experiences. Even the hard ones. Especially the hard ones.

More Articles
  • Life • 

    Lately, I’ve been ending my days on zero. Zero energy. Zero brain capacity. Zero will to do anything but lie on the floor in my dark bedroom for a precious few minutes, a brief overlap between me being awake and no one needing me for anything.  I think it has…

  • Life • 

    Happy almost-Halloween! Every time we walk into our CVS, my daughter asks me about the decorative witches lined up on their Halloween shelves (which have audaciously been there since late July). Every time, she asks me some version of “why do they look like like that?” Every time, the question…

  • Life • 

    My daughter slept in on the morning of her third birthday. A fitting gift for both of us. I really needed to write. I’d been oddly emotional all week. Somehow, this birthday felt different, monumental. Possibly because, at three years old, she is finally her own, coherent little person. This…

  • Life • 

    My husband, Adam, and I recently celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary. Well. We didn’t so much celebrate as co-exist and co-parent as usual, with our anniversary in mind. About a week earlier, I admitted to him that I hadn’t bought a gift or even thought about dinner reservations or a…

  • Life • 

    Multiple times per day, I clean the area of my house where the kitchen, family room, and my daughter’s playroom converge. Every time, it looks freshly cooked-in, lived-in, played-in. You’d think I never did anything at all. I find bits of old snacks and cheerful moments of crusted paint, stickers,…

  • Life • 

    It’s late. My husband has agreed to put our two-year-old daughter to bed, so I can “have some time to myself.” He does this as often as he can. I mostly use the time for my creative practice, to work on the writing career I’m trying to build.  We don’t…

  • Life • 

    Hello. Here we are in August, at the close of no-cook season. The season we eat some form of tomato or a peach salad for dinner every night followed by some type of flaky, baked thing packed with all the fruit that ripened too quickly. I barely come up for…

  • Food • 

    Nothing says summer to me more than a burst-cherry-tomato sauce. I love throwing a bunch of sweet, almost too-ripe cherry tomatoes into a sauce pan and then riffing with whatever I have in my kitchen. The past few weeks, that has been zucchini thanks to my in-laws and their garden. …

  • Books • 

    The summer before I started fifth grade, I took the first three Harry Potter books on a family trip to New York. By the time we touched down at JFK, I’d already read most of the first book. I continued the series through long beach days in Long Island, my…