The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother's Memoir

by Katrina Kenison

The Gift of an Ordinary Day is an intimate memoir of a family in transition, with boys becoming teenagers, careers ending and new ones opening up, and an attempt to find a deeper sense of place— and a slower pace— in a small New England town.

This is a story of mid-life longings and discoveries, of lessons learned in the search for home and a new sense of purpose, and the bittersweet intensity of life with teenagers—holding on, letting go.

Poised on the threshold between family life as she's always known it and her older son's departure for college, Kenison is surprised to find that the times she treasures most are the ordinary, unremarkable moments of everyday life, the very moments that she once took for granted, or rushed right through without noticing at all.

The relationships, hopes, and dreams that Kenison illuminates will touch women's hearts, and her words will inspire mothers everywhere as they try to make peace with the inevitable changes in store.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Parenting, Book Club, Self Help, Biography Memoir, Audiobook

336 pages, Paperback

First published August 20, 2009

About the author

"I write to remind myself of how I want to live and who I want to be," says KATRINA KENISON, author of three beloved memoirs that, together, chart the seasons of a woman's life.
Her first book, MITTEN STRINGS FOR GOD: REFLECTIONS FOR MOTHERS IN A HURRY, now a classic for parents of young children, is a compelling invitation to do less and enjoy life more -- in a culture that urges "bigger, better, faster."
THE GIFT OF AN ORDINARY DAY: A MOTHER'S MEMOIR celebrates the small pleasures and the small moments of family life, (which of course are not really small at all).
MAGICAL JOURNEY:AN APPRENTICESHIP IN CONTENTMENT, an intimate memoir of loss and change, growth and transformation. speaks to any woman who has ever mourned the passage of time, doubted her sense of purpose, or asked the question, "What now?"
Her new book, MOMENTS OF SEEING:REFLECTIONS FROM AN ORDINARY LIFE, gives voice to the private longings and simple joys of women everywhere. Drawn from her popular blog, this long-awaited collection is a welcome reminder to pay attention, to practice gratitude, to keep an eye out for wonder. So it is that we begin to discover the sacred in the everyday. .
The annual editor of THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES from 1990-2006, she co-edited, with John Updike, THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES OF THE CENTURY, a New York Times bestseller. Her other books include the anthology MOTHERS:TWENTY STORIES OF CONTEMPORARY MOTHERHOOD, and MEDITATIONS FROM THE MAT: REFLECTIONS FROM THE PATH OF YOGA, written with her yoga teacher Rolf Gates.
Katrina Kenison lives with her family in rural New Hampshire.

Reviews

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't love this book... I felt like there were some great insights and thoughts, but I also felt that it was way too long and that she rambled a bit. She would make the same point over and over using different words or thoughts... honestly, it was like reading an insanely long blog post. There was a story line hidden in the meandering thoughts, but it was hard to keep track of as she jumped from past to present so often.
There were some good things. But not enough for me to like the book or to read it again.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a mother, I felt this was the best book out there that has been written, regarding the truth of being a parent. Katrina Kenison does a wonderful job of laying it all out there in the wide range of emotions; some are painful, beautiful, endearing and some are just plain as raw as they can be described. While reading this book there were times that I became jealous, because this woman did what I have always felt needed to be done; she took the control over her life and her family's that needed to be taken. She wasn't going to allow the "Jones's" or the competitive environment in the educational system to label her children or family. Ms. Kenison was writing a story about herself, but I felt that she was writing about so many other mothers out there that are struggling to keep their children's head above water, in this all too pressurized world that we live in, today. I felt as though I was reading about myself, and was happy to read someone else's story, but sorry that I haven't taken the pen to paper to express my concerns. I only hope that someday, when I do, my words will be as captivating and moving as were Katrina's. This story is a true example of someone painting a picture with words, as you feel as though you are right there with her, as she takes you through this glorious and heart-wrenching journey. The only reason that I put this book down was because I didn't want it to end.

[Lara Hulzen · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the precipice of having one son in high school and the other in middle school, Katrina Kenison decides that maybe it’s time for the family to make a change. On the cusp of mid-life, she feels a tug for a simpler life. A smaller house, more open space, and the ability to focus on the next phase of life, one that entails mothering young men instead of little boys.

However, when she and her husband decide to sell their home, move to a small town in New England and renovate an old farmhouse, life seems to be far from simple. While they are renovating their new home, Katrina and her family live with her parents. What was intended to be a six-month stay turns into almost three years. By the time they move into their new home, her oldest son is a senior in high school facing the challenge of choosing, and applying to, the colleges of his choice, and her younger son has gone through the painfully awkward years that are middle school. In this time period, she also looses her job and questions exactly what her role as a mother should look like now that her children’s need for her is vastly different with play dates and reading time no longer the norm.

In the midst of attempting to find a simpler life, Katrina learns that life is what is happening right now, whether it is simple or not. What she was looking for was there all the time, she just had to pay attention. The life she wants consists of daily drives to school filled with precious conversations that could never be planned. Life is a day of heavy snow that wipes out electricity, causing her teenage sons to play board games with her and her husband and have snowball fights in the afternoon. Life is the four of them snuggling up on the couch to watch American Idol, and it is celebrating her older son’s acceptance into college while in her heart, grasping the reality that when he leaves, their lives will change.

This is a beautiful book. I found myself wiping away tears and highlighting so much that there is more yellow than white on the pages. Through this portion of her journey, Katrina reminds us that worry and fear only rob us of what is happening at the moment and if we don’t learn to pay attention, we will miss it and it will never return. When we fear, we lose sight of gratitude. There is not a charmed life, only charmed moments. Life will not begin when we get to that new house or when that job we’ve been waiting for begins. Life is in the moments that happen in each and every ordinary day, we just have to intentionally look for it.

[Lain · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book expecting a ho-hum collection of musings on the meaning of motherhood, the need to grab on to the present, and the desire to have just one more "ordinary" day with your offspring. What I got was so much more. In the hallowed tradition of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's "Gift from the Sea," Katrina Kenison offers readers a glimpse of the world we wish we could capture on our own; one in which each day and each moment is treasured like the most valuable of jewels and described in luminescent detail.

While she does discuss the topics I mentioned above, I also found lessons on what makes a home, what our responsibility is as parents, and what we can do to slow the world down long enough to extract meaning from it.

In simple, accessible prose she writes of the things we all wish we had taken the time to appreciate. Hopefully we readers will take the time to read and appreciate her beautiful work.

[AnnaMay · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book took a looooong time to get through. As I thought of why, I can only guess it's because of the writing style. Kenison is very 'thoughtful' in the way she puts things, so I could only read a few pages before being saturated.

There were a few 'long-stretch-reads' I was able to accomplish and that got me through the book. I asked myself a few times why I was still reading it, why I didn't just take it back to the library unfinished? Well, the 2 or 3 real 'glimpses' I was awarded made the read worth it.

I think a good editor could have tackled this and brought it down to 150 precious gem pages. 304 is too many. I found myself questioning, "Hasn't she already said this three times in this chapter?" round about page 290, etc.

If it were the 150 pg version, I would probably have given a 5-star rating and purchased it for every woman who is dear in my life. Being 304 pages, I still value the insight I gained into how precious each ordinary moment of life is. I should have read 1/2 chapter inbetween my fun novels instead of reading straight through this one without a break. It's a good '1-2 pages a day' book. Each chapter really does say the same thing as the previous, just in a different setting of her life.

The imagery is beautiful. I can tell she was an editor for 25 years.

I enjoyed learning from the outlook of a mother who is handing over her grown children to the world. I agree that 'A Mother's Memoir' is a very appropriate subtitle. It did make me cry 2-3 times, but the rest was kind of 'warm fuzzy' and almost right on the mark, but not quite. I respect Kenison from writing so 'from-the-heart' and putting herself out there for all of us to read and critique along with enjoy.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This book was an excellent but wrenching read for me right now. I loved Kenison's earlier book, Mitten Strings for God, and loved how it reminded mothers to focus on the moments while parenting young children. How much more we need the lessons in the teen years and while we are struggling to learn how to parent almost-adults who are about to leave. I identified so strongly with the emotions and the feeling of impending loss that I cried all to often during this book.
A few quotes that were meaningful to me:
We are entering a kind of homestretch here, the end of family life as we've always known it, the end of the day-in-day-out, zip-your-jacket-here's-your-sandwich kind of mothering by which I've defined myself for so long.
When we focus on what is good and beautiful in someone, whether or not we think that they "deserve" it, the good and beautiful are strengthened merely by the light of our attention . . . Sometimes it is necessary, as Galway Kinnell has written, "to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on its brow of the flower, and retell it in words and in touch it is lovely until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing."
Take the long view, I reminded myself . . . Life finds its balance. Children grow up. Second chances come along. In the meantime, I could choose to savor this moment.

This book was very provoking for me right now. We have some family traditions that are left over from early childhood which really serve no purpose any longer except "we've always done that" and it's been much harder than I thought it would be to let go. I think this is because instead of years and years ahead of me to change and adapt, I'm feeling the pressure of only two or three years with one child, and time racing along with the others, and I'm trying desperately to hold on. But I'm not always sure I'm holding on to the right things. This book raised just the issues I need to be thinking about right now.

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

My daughter came home from school last spring and told me that the salutatorian at a nearby high school had missed being valedictorian because she had taken orchestra, which is not officially an honors class and therefore not worth 5 points on a 4 point GPA scale. True or not, my daughter internalized this story and wondered aloud if taking band and art this year would hurt her life prospects. As someone with no –torians to her credit, I told her that I hoped she would take band and art every semester that she could because they give her pleasure and use a different part of her brain than the coursework that fills the rest of her day. I told her that I do not believe in living a fearful life, hounded always by the prospect of a tactical mistake that would ruin everything.

Katrina Kenison says it this way: “If I really want to encourage my own two sons to follow a course in life more purposeful than accumulating wealth, power, and prestige, I must first acknowledge the value of such a life myself. I need to show, by my own example, that the path to fulfillment has but little to do with mastery and conquest and much to do with coming to know oneself, finding pleasure in everyday events, doing work that matters, living in community with family and friends, being loved and loving in return." Amen.

Her earlier book, Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry, was a deeply influential book for me. I read it when my children were very young, and it inspired me to be more deliberate about slowing down and paying attention to the experiences they found most compelling, like watching caterpillars inch up a tree. I have reread this book many times.

Initially, I was disappointed by the new book because, unlike Mitten Strings, it is not organized into pithy chapters full of warm and fuzzy parenting insights. This book is an adult memoir about a woman in midlife. ("For the first time ever, I find myself feeling lonely in my own family, as if everyone else has moved on and left me behind.”) She describes her struggles with moving, building a house, finding a role after a layoff, and wading through adolescence with her sons. The stories aren't quite as reassuring, and the responses are more ambiguous. She flounders and doubts herself, and sometimes I doubted her, too. However, I was completely drawn in by her stories about helping her sons negotiate the transitions of middle school, high school, and college. I marked many, many passages to reread. And I wanted to join her book group.

Perhaps adolescence and midlife are more ambiguous life chapters that defy the epigrams I loved so much in Mitten Strings. In spite of some meanderings, this book comforted me.

[Marnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read for any mother who loves mothering her children, and who struggles daily with loving them enough to prepare them to one day leave home. This book provides great encouragement to parents who want simply to raise their children up to be who they are intended to be, not what prevailing society thinks our children should be.

So often it can be hard to escape societal noise about what "should" be important to us as parents, and to decide for ourselves what truly matters as it relates to our own children. If you are a mother (or father) who truly cares about what is unique and important about each child in your family, then you will find great comfort reading from a mother who is on the other side of raising kids up to be who they are, and simply being the parent you want to be. Parenting well can be mighty challenging. In this book we read great writing from a mother who stayed true to herself and her family in spite of the hardships along the way.

Toward the end of the book there was some meandering, almost as if a journal were shared with us unedited, with incomplete thoughts. However, this did not make me love the whole of this book any less. It was almost as if I wrote this book back to myself ten years down the road from where I stand now. I am grateful for Katrina Kenison’s insightful, heartfelt words of wisdom. I consider this a must-read for mothers.

[Anne Lowrey Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I've come full-circle with Katrina Kenison. I read "Mitten Strings for God" when my children were younger. Now with one out of the nest, one nearly there and mid-life staring me in the face, I read this beautifully written book. As much about mid-life as nearly-grown children, her words spoke to the places in my heart having similar struggles with mid-life and what's next. The journey towards the end of high school and college searching made me smile in solidarity and anticipation.

[Rebecca Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVE her writing. This is a book I will be giving to SO many of my friends for a gift. Each day I took it to the gym, I would ALWAYS end up getting off my machine and running to grab a pencil at the front desk because I had to mark something.

Her writing is very soothing and calming to me. She has a way of speaking about the changes in life, that just reassures the reader that things will be ok. That we don't have to push and pull and worry so much. We can TRUST that life will work itself out, that our children will be led on their own paths, that we will be shown the way ahead for ourselves.

Here are some of my favorite excerpts and thoughts...

In our fast moving, noisy world, less can be more, silence is precious, and in our daily rush through life, we often sacrifice the very things we need the most--quiet, awareness, patience, joy.

There is no such thing as a charmed life, not for any of us, no matter where we live or how mindfully we attend to the tasks at hand. But there are charmed moments, all the time, in every life and in every day, if we are only awake enough to experience them when they come and wise enough to appreciate them.

According to yoga teacher and writer Stephen Cope, every human being is born with a unique gift, a gift that, once discovered, is the doorway to a fulfilled life, to our particular path or calling. Not surprisingly, the gift requires practice, an enormous investment of time and energy and faith. But what is surprising, according to Cope, is that our gift is often paired with a wound. In other words, our strength seems to be born of our suffering, growing and flowering out of our limitations.

If I'm paying attention, then I do experience these days, and all these plain, unadorned moments, as gifts. And I remember that grace, like any other gift, can easily be mine, if i open my hand to accept it. "Grace is available for each of us every day--our spiritual daily bread," writes Sarah Ban Breathnach, "but we've got to remember to ask for it with a grateful heart and not worry about whether there will be enough for tomorrow."

As soon as I stop wishing for things to be different, I am met by the beauty of what is--a family on the brink of change, a friend at my side, a narrow country road slick with rain, the first tiny coils of sweet fern...

To live is to die to how we wanted it to be, writes Jack Kornfield, and to open to more truth. To love is to accept. It is the most extraordinary power.

The world is filled with need. If I am to be of some use, I must first rise to the challenge of my own rebirth and growth, must engage in the gradual, demanding process of discovering the person I am meant to be now and taking up the work I am called to do.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting enough to keep me reading to the end but I don't think I'll recommend it highly. Her earlier book had much food for thought about a mother's efforts to simplify and slow down a hectic life with younger children. This book read more like a mother goes off the deep end in anxiousness about time and location angst as her children become teens and it takes her three years to come to grips with her anxiety and to remedy the upheaval it has created. She's aware and articulates, by the end of the book, that that is what this has been, and she recounts some good experiences that helped reground her. But her experiences of upheaval and uprooting (including physically uprooting her family and moving multiple times and overseeing the building a new, custom house) were, I believe, less common in nature than the experiences in her earlier book, so there was less for me, as a mother of children who've gone through their teens, to relate to than there was in the first. I guess I was expecting essay and commentary like her first book and instead got biography. That said, Kenison writes well and tells a good tale.

[fpk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the title of this book more than the book itself. I found some points profound, and other parts of the book seemed repetitive. This definitely could have been a shorter book . Kenison writes about her life; her boys growing up, her impulsive moves, friends she meets, struggles her family goes through. And weaves in thoughts throughout about appreciating the smaller things in life,, taking time to savor each moment. She talks about simplicity, paring down, slowing down, but I couldn't help notice just how busy her life truly was, full of activity and anything but simple. Music lessons, practices, long commutes, writing, packing, painting, moving, ball games, performances, and the list goes on. I like her ideas, her aspirations for a slower, simpler life. Perhaps the book would have been better if she'd incorporated that simplicity in her writing- 100 fewer pages. 3+ stars.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m living in the country with three teenage kids during quarantine. Seems like the perfect time to read this slow, contemplative book about slowing down, letting go and appreciating ordinary grace. Indeed the lessons here are relevant and I’ll take them with me. But overall the pace and plotless nature of the book are quieter than I prefer.

[Shirley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Katrina Kenison's previous book, Mitten Strings for God (such an unfortunate title for marketing purposes - it wasn't really about God so much as a spiritual, deliberate way of living), which she wrote when her kids were young, about living less-scheduled days with less hurry. That book, along with Simplicity Parenting, are probably the two books I'd put on my "this is how I want to parent" shelf.

So I jumped to read this book, which she wrote some years later. It is a bit more unsettled time in her life - her family decides to move from the home they thought they'd live in forever to a farmhouse via three years spent living in her parents' home. Her sons are adolescents and busy with school activities and applying to colleges, she loses her job (she edited for many years the "Best American Short Stories" compilations), and so she has to find a new identity outside of working mother in middle age. This reads like a journal of those three years. It could have been shorter and more streamlined. But as she admits, she needed to write this to work through those times. She doesn't always succeed in living like her ideals, but I like that she has them and I like the ones that she has.

This too goes on my "ideal parenting" shelf for me to reread as the kids get older. At this point all I'm grooming my four-year-old daughter for is a Sound of Music sing-along in the next few years, and I just hope that she's happy with who she is and what she does. This book will be a balm for the days when life doesn't seem so simple.

[Janene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many years ago I read her "Mitten Strings for God," and it became a very formative book for me in my young motherhood season, so I flagged this as one to read when I was entering the age of parenting teens. Suddenly here we are. :)

It was fine. While it contained the expected nudges to slow down, keep things simple and see the moments that really matter in the motherhood journey, it was also a bit of a story of how she convinced her husband that they should buy a cottage on a north Atlantic mountainside, then find it was unlivable. They tear it down and rebuild a different home in the same spot because of how much the area spoke to her soul. I'm a sentimental person and I can appreciate that. In the midst of it all, she was still creating the sense of home in an unconventional space (living with her parents) and raising teens, yes, but it started to also feel like the story of her new house.

It's her story, it has value, and in reading or listening to this, we just have to keep in mind -- it isn't for everyone. :) I understand better than I did even five years ago, that our story doesn't need to, and indeed can't, look like anyone else's, so I was able to take what was written here, and glean just what I needed and not feel guilty about any of the rest. It's inevitable that a book like this might lean towards a humble brag. Even so, it was a well-written reminder to see the everyday moments as the most precious. I'm behind that sentiment 100 percent.

[Celestia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is so lovely. I read the author's first book Mitten Strings for God (about life with little children) when I was postpartum with baby #4. It affected me greatly, by planting a seed in my mind to stop watching TV and listening to news on the radio in the morning. Now this book, the sequel, is about the author with children who are teens. How fitting for me to read it now that my oldest are up there too and I was postpartum again, this time with baby #7. (I was disappointed to read in the sequel that she let her kids watch TV and they became big fans of American Idol.)

Anyway, this book is about one woman's attempt to get off the conveyor belt of suburban life and find something more satisfying. She does this by selling her home, buying an old home in the country, razing it, and building a new home. The whole idea of moving on with life symbolizes her sons' growing up and her growing up as a mother: letting go of their childhood and preparing to be an empty nester. I loved all of her quotes from other authors. They were so nourishing. She got way too repetitive, however, with her theme of "letting go/dying as to the old self to give birth to new life" so that it seemed to be on every other page. But all in all, it was a great book and a great reminder to me to let my children find their own agenda and not impose my agenda for them onto their lives.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have given the first half of this book four stars. I felt inspired by Kenison's forging through large changes in her life with confidence and some degree of optimism. I feel the older I get the more frightened of change I become. She helped me to think outside of that fear for a moment.
Later in the book Kenison's writing became too monotonous - writing ad nauseam in a self assessment, minutiae laden, universal truth sort of way. Too many pages that said the same thing again and again. Although I must admit some of her "universal truth" perspectives resonated with me in a way that makes me feel grateful to have read the book.

My children are still small, but adolescence looms nearer than we ever care to imagine. Adolescence, and early adulthood, that takes our children into the new realm of life outside of our own. There will come a day when I let my last child go off to find his own way through adulthood and Kenison has given me insights into how to do that with some amount of grace.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this at my 4th grade son's Scholastic Book Fair in December 2010, for myself. I read it over Christmas vacation and savored all the lovely, true parts she mentions that come with being a wife and a mother. I read slowly so that I could drink in every moment and feeling the author shares with her reader. It was wonderful to connect with her on many levels. I too left the city for the country with my husband, children and pets, and have never regretted the decision and choiced we've made. Not always easy but so worth it!

At the same time, I felt as though the author paid homage to her eldest son in writing this story. I began to feel as though she recognized his gifts and talents and needed to change their (family) life in able to provide her eldest son the freedom to grow in a better, more nurturing environment. It left me feeling that her second, youngest son was left out of this beautiful process she gives her eldest son, and rebelled against her ideals and values as a way to get his own attention.

[reira · Rating 1 out of 5]

dnf chapter 4

Couldn't finish it and not because of her writing style but because of her life choices.
she decided to move out on a whim, not considering the children. when she bought her dream house, (whilst again ignoring the wellbeing of her children and also the personal wishes of her husband) she regretted it because.... well .. as her husband told her: the house SUCKED.
After seeing her child cry at night, being mad at her for her self-centered choices, she randomly decides (again for everyone) that a party is needed??????
Some random dude at the party tells her, that the house is perfect, and she shouldn't change anything. And she was ''so glad to hear the right thing at the right time''????????? Just face the truth and tell everyone you f**** up. No need to run away from your guilt through a party and a lie from a stranger.

don't want to read a book about a 40-year-old woman not being able to self-reflect, dragging everyone into her midlife crisis, and running away from her mistakes

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this very thoughtful memoir of a mother with two high school age boys trying to enjoy her time with them, while at the same time, letting go as her oldest enters college. I could identify with many of the things she feels -- trying to create an identity outside her role as mother and wife, feeling unneeded as her boys grow older, trying to appreciate the many little things that create our life. I found myself highlighting many gems along the way. Overall, I felt a sense of calm and community after reading the book. I feel like each moment with my children is fleeting and I find myself often trying to grab hold and remember and appreciate this wonderful time together.

[Lenore Diviney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Read!!! While two of my favorite take-aways were actually quotes by others Katrina shares a side of herself we all know as mothers.

[Misty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This spoke to my heart and soul on so many levels. It was like her thoughts were my own. Considering uprooting all our roots for something new and different. Facing a teenager embarking on life and that feeling of loss and transition. Having put so much effort into motherhood and being left with a wondering of who I am without that constant daily presence of children in need. She reminded me of the beauty that can come in the transitions of life, if we only slow down to see it. She had me laughing, crying, yearning for what was and what will be. And also squeezing my younger son just a little tighter while he still asks for bedtime cuddles, in no hurry to rush onto the next thing. This book was a balm for a transitioning mother's soul.

[Tricia Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me 9 months to read this book. Partly because it was verbose and at times it seemed to ramble on but also every emotion the author expressed I am feeling as I have a senior in high school and an 8th grader. I could identify with every emotion expressed and sometimes I would have tears in my eyes and just couldn't continue. The author has a gift with words and writes beautifully. I would have loved to have given it 5 stars but it wasn't quite there for me.

[Bonnie White · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second time I read this book. The first time I read it my kids were getting prepared to apply for college. Having just finished this book again, I found it a wonderful "mother's memoir" for both the author and this mother. Perspective is important in all reading, and reading this book from two varying perspectives was valuable. I would recommend for mothers of teens for sure!

[Kelly Zazeckis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just loved this book. It chronicles one mother's journey through the difficult times that are the teenage years. Add to that the existential crisis of where to go when you feel the neighborhood that was right for you during your kids' younger years isn't the right place anymore. And all the while, trying to live more simply, yourself, and as a family, making choices that aren't always popular at the time. I enjoyed experiencing this woman's trials and tribulations, not to mention times of joy as well as lessons learned from mothering teenage boys. It was a poignant and beautiful read.

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. If you liked Eat Pray Love you will love this book. This genre is not for me

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another gem by Katrina Kenison, though I like Magical Journey a little better. This is a book about a time in her life when many changes were happening, her boys were growing up fast and she discovered that, in her words, "The memories I find myself sifting through the past to find, the ones that I would now give anything to relive, are the ones that no one ever thought to photograph, the ones that came and went as softly as a breeze on a summer afternoon. I has taken a while, but I know it now- the most wonderful gift we had, the gift I've finally learned to cherish above all else, was the gift of all those perfectly ordinary days."
There were so many other quotes that I loved, here are just a few others:
"Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you" -Parker Palmer "Not a day goes by that I don't still need to remind myself that my life is not just what's handed to me, nor is it my list of obligations, my accomplishments or failures, or what my family is up to, but rather it is what I choose, day in and day out, to make of it all."
"I've wasted too much time worrying, backsliding into fear, when I could have loved and lived more boldly. I've skimmed the surface of life when I could have been diving deep.
Now I begin to view our time together differently, begin to see that stepping up to one's life adventure doesn't necessarily mean doing extraordinary things. It also means coming to understand that viewed in the right light, through the right eyes, everything is extraordinary.
The hardest part of being a parent may be learning to live with the fact that there are so many things that we simply can't control, so much of the journey that is not our doing at all, but rather the work of god, the unfolding of destiny,fate. We give birth to our children, we love and cherish them, but we don't form or own them, any more than we can own the flowers blooming at our doorsteps or the land upon which we build our homes and invest our dreams.
Caterpillars spin cocoons in which to metamorphose into butterflies. Teenagers, it seems, need to create for themselves the same kind of transformational space in which to do the hard private work of growing up. They leave behind all that once was beloved and disappear for a while into a place that is, for all intents and purposes, our of our reach.
Life flows on, and it's OK. The best days, sometimes, are the days when nothing happens to ripple the calm surface of life.
There is no such thing as a charmed life, not for any of us... but there are charmed moments, all the time, in every life and in every day, if we are only awake enough to experience them when they come and wise enough to appreciate them.
It is so easy, living with teenagers, to confuse life with performance, and busyness with meaning. I see how my own responsibilities expand to fill every moment of the day and that my sons have grown accustomed to having something going on during every waking hour. Yet I keep hoping, for all our sakes, that we might strike more of a balance between being and doing, between meeting the demands of life and pausing long enough to appreciate its sweet rewards.
The secret of contentment, as I've come at last to know, is not in getting what I want. It's not about being in the perfect place or having just the right sort of life. Contentment and grace may just be two sides of the same coin. And they are both mine whenever I remember to stop, look around, and appreciate where I already am and what I already have."

[Michelle Ciulla · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second time I have read this book. I knew I needed to pick it up again because it's about how life and motherhoold continue to change as adolescent children become adults. It's a perfect read for any of you who, like me, are constantly reinventing ourselves to make sure that we are doing right by our growing kids. Feels appropriate that I finished it today as Jude and I are spending the day in Boston on his first college tours. I couldn't recommend this book more. Be warned: it can get pretty mushy sometimes and may require tissues.

[Teresa Staton · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an enjoyable, quiet read! As a mother of four kids, the oldest being 11, I value the wisdom of those farther down the mothering path. In this memoir, Kenison, a mother of two teenage sons, writes about a time in her family's life that included a drawn-out move, a child applying and eventually transitioning to college, raising teenagers, and trying to find identity amidst the changes. Kenison is authentic about mistakes and struggles; I never felt like she was putting on a pretty face, and I appreciated her honesty. There is also a strong spiritual thread throughout her memoir. While her beliefs are different than my own, I enjoyed her insights. There are many common human experiences reflected upon in this book, and I like how Kenison processes these experiences on paper. There are many highlights in my copy, and I would recommend this book to other mothers- especially to those going through transitions. Lovely read!

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alright, so I'm only 10 pages into this book and already feel a kinship with the author - now if I could only express myself so eloquently, ahhh, the dream of becoming a writer . . .

I connected immediately with this book and wanted to share a portion from the introduction: "And so I offer the story of my midlife searching and mothering over the course of five unsettled years, in the hope that other mothers will recognize aspects of themselves in these pages and remember that, unique though our own experiences may be, none of us really travels this path alone. Parenthood is what binds us. Our own doubts and questions awaken empathy for parents everywhere, and our fierce love for our own children deepends our compassion for all children. Walking in the woods with a friend, or gathered around a dinner table when the candles have burned low, or sitting in a circle in a church basement, we share our struggles, open our hearts, tell about our lives and our children's lives, in an effort to make sense of things, to learn the hidden truths of ourselves, but also, of course, to share the small discoveriens that may somehow ease the way for someone else. This is how it's been for me."

Another paragraph: ". . . I learned a lot about myself, and many lessons in mindfulness, during those long days. Intense and demanding as they are, the years we spend with our young children can also be deeply, viscerally gratifying. We know exactly where we are needed and what we need to be doing. Immersed in the physical and emotional realm of parenthood, we develop reserves of patience, imagination, and fortitude we never dreamed possible. At times, the hard work of being a mother seems in itself a spiritual practice, an opportunity for growth and self-exploration in an extraordinarily intimate world, a world in which hands are for holding, bodies for snuggling, laps for sitting . . ."

Now that I've finished this book, it has graduated into the category of "books to read every few years." Beautiful, inspiring, reflective, and filled with wisdom, I know I will continue to peruse it's pages on those days I feel unsure of myself, my children, and my life's direction. I think I've underlined more passages than in any other book I've read - ever - and I attribute that to the connection I felt with the author and her spirit. I highly recommend this book to every woman I know who has experienced the joys and sorrows of motherhood.