This Unquiet Mind

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Kristen Martin

The Spiral

Being a mom means holding it together. Being a woman means holding it together. I am usually good at holding it together. People have told me that I seem like a bastion of calm and a person who has it figured out. Probably because I did well in school (“gifted

NYC Food Memories

Like many folks who grow up seeing it only on television, I’ve always had a thing for New York City. For years I longed to visit, but as a West Coast suburbanite without much extra money, I had to settle for San Francisco and Seattle to get my fix

Girl With a Book

I’m naturally a planner, but life gets busy for all of us, and this year I had some shopping to do on the Saturday before Christmas. I waited until I thought mall traffic had died down, then grabbed my coat and prepped my husband for what time I would

The Most Distressing Sound: Having an Asthmatic Child

We have just made it through another bout with our son’s asthma. If I had to guess at all the things that trigger his symptoms, I’d have to go with just about any natural phenomenon: weather changes, laughter, exercise, dust particles, nighttime. (I have actually read that chronic

Christmas (De)lights

In one of the suburban houses I grew up in, my bedroom was on the second floor overlooking a cul-de-sac. Across from the cul-de-sac was a barren field, and beyond that was a concrete wall that bordered a busy shopping center. There was a Bel Air

Parental Control

Nobody warned me that being a parent is really hard for a control freak. But then, only some people very close to me would see me as controlling. The archetypal control freak is outwardly neurotic, maybe a little aggressive about correcting others. I generally come off as quietly Type A,

Fortysomething

I try to avoid talking about my age in cliches, especially meme-ified ones such as "I'm this old ..." followed by a picture of a Game Boy or some other fad from my childhood. In fact, I never use the word "old" about myself