Ellen Herrick

Author of The Sparrow Sisters

I Have No Elf on a Shelf

by

XmasXtreeX2015

 

My children are grown now so we missed the Elf on a Shelf extravaganza. And, no I am not sorry. Not that we didn’t have our own, certainly less KGB, elf tradition. It began with my father. But really, it began with his five sisters and three brothers on a tobacco farm in 1930s North Carolina. There wasn’t a lot of money in this big family but there was a lot of love. The older children looked out for the younger right down to making sure the magic and mystery of Christmas, elves and all, was never forgotten. They are all gone now; my father was the last. But, they left me with a lasting love of the season and an unshakeable belief in the power of family love.

Continue Reading...

Safe as Houses

by

I am lost.  It’s as if I am a sleepwalker woken up in another room.  Even the face of my waker is a stranger to me.  Nothing is where I left it; my books closed and unread, abandoned in piles at my bedside.  This Autumn, a season of such unexpected warmth and sunshine, has left me in darkness.  I am constantly cold.  Some days I leave my coat on until my daughter comes home from school. I tear it off and shove it into the closet when I hear her footstep at the front door.  I bake and I cook but I don’t eat.  While my family swirls in and out of this little house I am left standing at a center that I cannot hold.  But, I am trying, so very hard.  For the first time I am so separate from my children that sometimes I don’t even say goodnight to my daughter, embarrassed that at 8:30 I can’t keep my head up anymore.  She is in her room, chatting, working, singing Christmas carols in a high, sweet soprano, and I am in mine, a single lamp puddling light on a book that won’t be read. I am homesick and I can’t go home.

Continue Reading...

The End is Nigh

by

kid gloves

It is a fact that I tend toward melancholy.  This is not to be confused with having a sentimental streak.  THAT I do not.  At our recent yard sale—which nearly killed me and several of the shoppers—I all but threw merchandize (including vintage linen and quilts, 60-year old, pristine kid gloves, silver plate whiskey sour muddlers and a set of library steps) at the milling crowd.  “Take it,” I screamed, “Just get it out of here!”  When a particularly creepy man asked us if there was more to see inside the house I almost told him “Yes, just go in there and strip the joint!”

Continue Reading...

The Magicians’ Assistants

by

I went to New York City last weekend.  I find it an exhausting proposition but I had two very good reasons to visit.  More on that in a minute, first a bit of history.  I was born in Manhattan and lived in the same zip code for years after college: first in a grand old apartment building on Central Park and next in a brownstone with my future husband just blocks away from that childhood home.

Continue Reading...

The Return

by

It rained today as Emma and I walked to school.  It had started in the night, great gusts of wind and rain hammering at the windows in my bedroom under the eaves.  Emma, as used to be the case when David traveled more, slept with me.  It had been months since she’d joined me.  Her long legs migrated to my side of the mattress and her heat woke me before the rain.  Only a few inches shorter than I am, Emma had suddenly taken over not just my bed but my body, in a way.  She sprawled, jack-knifed, splayed and scrambled in her dreams until I had to shove her away.  I lay in the dark listening to the storm pass through Cambridge and (after the obligatory dead of night stumble to the bathroom) thought about what I’d do the next day if the rain continued.

Continue Reading...

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to CVS

by

My sister is visiting with her daughter, Lily.  A more lithesome, light and lovely girl you couldn’t conjure–unless you grew up with Liza, her mother, who very nearly floated through her first 16 years on long legs and pointe shoes.  Now, before those of you who know me too well roll your eyes and take bets on how long before Liza and I cross the Rubicon of sisterhood and kill each other, let me just tell you this; I have not stopped laughing since she got here.

Continue Reading...

Quick, Get Me a Pad and Pencil. Ah, too late.

by

I have “Ah Ha” moments in completely useless spots.  You know, places where I cannot possibly act on my revelations.  The grown up equivalent of those I’m just high/looped/tired enough to get that the “fourth dimension is UP, man!” flashes.  I wouldn’t call them epiphanies, they’re more like epihanettes.  They seem to occur while I’m walking along Portobello Road, pulling my stylish trolley.  Or, when I’m swimming and I have to chant the meaning of everything that I’ve just discovered (I’ll share it later) over and over until I’ve finished the swim.  By the time I’ve gotten in the shower, it’s gone. (Sorry, gone, baby, gone, can’t share.) Or, in the car while I’m singing along with “Carry on My Wayward Son.”  Kansas, right, good memory.

Continue Reading...