Karen is a mental health therapist who believes that much of mental illness is, at its core, simply loneliness. Hence her ardent belief in community, which she backs up with her lifestyle. A former newspaper reporter, she is happy to still be writing in what is fast becoming a "post newspaper" age.
No one but me thought it was a good idea to hire a live-in maid and nanny. My mother reminded me that she had raised three kids and worked full time, and still managed to keep a cleaner house than mine, all on her own. My mother-in-law pointed out that neither of my sisters-in-law had maids, and they could actually afford…
YOU WONDER WHY I TAKE BATHS ALL THE TIME Ten p.m. He would be home in about an hour. She jumped up and turned off the television. Nothing romantic about having the television on, especially at eleven o’clock. He’d come in, tired from working the night shift, pushing the door shut so he could put his coat…
A phone call for my husband. I call him, then go looking. He’s not in the den. Or the bedroom. A knock on the bathroom door gets only silence. I realize he may be ignoring me, so I call: “Gary, it’s a phone call from your work.” If he thinks it’s someone important who wants…
Karen lives in a church based intentional community – almost a dozen unrelated people who have chosen to pool their resources and share a large crumbling mansion in the suburbs. One night this happened. Shadows pool so deeply at the bottom of the stairway that it would have been easy to miss the woman standing…
Kindred 