Category: Womanhood

The Mystery Behind the Winchester Mystery House

Our family recently enjoyed an epic trip to California – a trip that lasted two weeks and spanned 6,500 miles as we traveled from Vermont to Montreal, Canada, flew to San Francisco, drove to Los Angeles, and returned to Vermont again by way of Montreal. We slept in five different locations and reconnected with numerous dear friends and family members. 

The three days that we spent in the San Francisco Bay Area marked our first return to the region since 2016. The Bay Area is where my husband, Erick, grew up and lived until his college graduation; we’d lived there for half of our first decade of marriage and it’s where our first three children were born. We barely scratched the surface of our family history during this visit, but we did take our children to the Winchester Mystery House. 

Erick and I had visited the Winchester Mystery House once, before we had children. It was shortly after we’d moved to Berkeley, something to do on a free Saturday when we were still exploring the new landscape we now inhabited. Come to think of it, we probably even slept late and then read the newspaper over brunch; we may even have watched an entire movie the night before! 

The details of that first visit were fuzzy in my mind, but I still remembered the bizarre story behind the Winchester Mystery House. Here is the story as I relayed it to my children: 

Sarah Winchester, who had married into the family that owned the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, moved to San Jose, California in the 1880s after the deaths of her husband and infant daughter. She was consumed with guilt over the people who’d been killed by Winchester rifles, and was told by a medium that she had to continually build a house for their ghosts; if construction ever stopped, she would have bad luck – or die (or perhaps both.) So, she bought an old farmhouse and began a 38-year construction project that ballooned the house to 500 rooms, complete with bizarre features like doors to nowhere, curving staircases with tiny steps, trapdoors, and walled-off windows. The building was, of course, never finished. 

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Why You Should Watch “Barbie”

“This movie is going to change my life,” my 15-year-old daughter stated confidently.

I looked over to where she sat in the passenger seat, swathed in an oversized pink sweatshirt. I was taking her to meet a friend, with whom she would watch the new “Barbie” film. The film that would, apparently, change her life.

I’m getting used to hyperbolic statements from my teenagers, but I still tend to pause and assess the underlying intent before I respond. Is she being serious? Sarcastic? Humorous? Dramatic? If you see me looking confused for the next decade or so, this is why. 

“Well, that sounds really…exciting,” I responded slowly. “Although in my experience, life change is a slightly…longer process.”

“Well, this movie’s going to change my life,” she asserted. “When you pick me up, I’ll be a different person.”

When I picked her, she still looked the same. 

“So?” I asked, “How was it? Did it change your life?”

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Things We Don’t Talk About: Work, Family, and Mortality

I recently finished reading Kristin Lavransdatter, an 1,100-page, three-volume novel written in 1920 by Norwegian author Sigrid Undset. It won the Nobel Prize in Literature for its epic depiction of the life – the whole life — of a woman in 14th-century Norway. 

What surprised me was how contemporary much of the book felt. The title character may be managing her ancestral estate in medieval Norway, but for most of the book she’s frustrated with her husband for not pulling his weight, worried about her children, second-guessing her life choices, and feeling judged by her neighbors.

When I get together with other middle-aged mothers, we often end up discussing those exact things. 

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Things We Don’t Talk About: Being the Anti-Hero

I have an uneasy relationship in my head with singer/songwriter/cultural icon Taylor Swift. On the one hand, I appreciate her catchy tunes and sharply intelligent lyrics. After watching the 2020 Netflix documentary Miss Americana with my children, I was deeply impressed with Swift’s creative process, and grateful for the thoughtful messages she conveyed about the dark side of fame and her struggles with body image. 

On the other hand, I can’t help but feel a little resentful that so much of Swift’s oeuvre has become the soundtrack of my life – a soundtrack that I didn’t choose, but that’s been thrust upon me by my children. Taylor Swift’s voice accompanies us everywhere: driving in the car, doing dishes, doing homework. I’m also less-than-thrilled that she seduced our whole family – including our pre-teen children – with her early, wholesome, country-to-pop crossover albums, and then released a trio of albums over the past three years in which 1/3 of the songs are marked “E” for “explicit lyrics.” It’s made for plenty of exciting, dive-for-the-mute-button family car rides. 

Still, on Taylor Swift’s latest album, Midnights, there’s a song that’s become a sort of anthem for me. When I first listened to “Anti-Hero,” I recognized the chorus for how it beat in time with my own subconscious: “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.” 

This year, I started seeing a counselor. While my Puritan ancestors would never sign up for therapy — let alone admit to it — I teach my children that therapy is smart, not shameful. Indeed, over half of our family has seen counselors at any given time over the past couple of years. I have an amazing spouse, dear friends, and a church community, but there’s nothing quite like meeting regularly with someone whose job is to reflect your thought and behavior patterns back to you in all their dysfunctional glory.  

I started therapy because I was starting to be haunted by this dysfunctional thought: Everybody would be better off if I weren’t around. All I do is ruin things and create more stress for people. 

It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.

This thought pattern came to light when my counselor asked, “What are you most afraid of?” 

How would you answer that question?

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

A Story of Marriage in Three Beds

“You spend 1/3 of your life in bed,” my husband, Erick, tells me.

Our beds are where we sleep, of course, and we need sleep: Sleep is when our bodies repair and recharge. Bed also tends to be where we lie awake, tossing and turning during difficult times through the watches of the night. We take to our beds when we’re sick. And the most intimate and vulnerable moments of a marriage happen in bed; moments that can lead to the creation of new life.

Our beds, then, are pretty important.

When Erick and I got married, we had almost no furniture. I spent the three years before our marriage in a studio apartment on East 91st Street in Manhattan. It was the size of a large walk-in closet, and my furniture consisted of a futon, a bookcase, a steamer trunk that served as a coffee table, and a large and uncomfortable wicker chair (which, for some reason, we still have.)

Erick spent those same three years sharing a rental house in Cos Cob, Connecticut with three colleagues from the hedge fund where he worked. His belongings consisted of several large plastic bins and a mattress.

So we were in trouble when, just prior to our wedding, we purchased an apartment in Manhattan complete with a large living/dining space and two bedrooms. (Granted, the second “bedroom” could fit nothing larger than a crib, but still, it was a huge step up.) 

Thankfully, gifts are a part of getting married – and thankfully, cash is the gift of choice if you’re marrying into a Chinese-American family. Clutching our wad of wedding cash, Erick and I quickly bought what we needed to furnish our first apartment. “Quickly” is the operative word: Neither one of us particularly enjoyed furniture shopping, I just wanted to get our home decorated as soon as possible, and Erick didn’t have strong opinions. Except when it came to beds.

“I’ve heard that it’s important for married couples to get a king-sized bed,” Erick said, with authority. “That way, they each have their own space.”

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Life With a Saint

I’ve begun to suspect that I may have married a saint.

To be clear, it didn’t take me 20 years of marriage to figure out that my husband, Erick, is a uniquely kind, generous, and principled human being; he’s been that way as long as I’ve known him, and his fundamental goodness is one of the things that first drew me to him.

But lately, Erick has added a series of ascetic practices to his life that make me wonder if he’s displaying the early warning signs of becoming a desert hermit. He’s not yet wearing sackcloth and ashes, or practicing self-flagellation, but it may be only a matter of time. 

Erick is no stranger to discipline, self-denial, or extreme frugality. When I met him he was managing a hedge fund in Greenwich, Connecticut, but his only earthly possessions were confined to a few plastic bins. Then, as now, he wore his clothing until it literally fell from his body in tatters. (Much to his children’s chagrin, he takes great pride in several Sesame Street t-shirts and a black trench coat that date back to his high school days.) I have long been baffled by his habit of suddenly cutting coffee entirely out of his life for weeks at a time so as to avoid becoming dependent. He eschews all social media and imposes strict controls on his internet use. Yet he will tell you humbly that all of this discipline is necessary…because he lacks willpower. (How’s that for circular reasoning?)

This is the husband I’ve known and loved for two decades, but over the past six months he’s taken his monkish habits to the next level. 

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Holiday Film Review: Disenchanted

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, our entire family sat down to watch the new Disney film, Disenchanted. In a rare occurrence, all our children were excited to view the long-awaited sequel to 2007’s Enchanted. The original film, which we’ve seen multiple times, follows Giselle – a stereotypical Disney princess in search of “true love’s kiss” – as she’s transported in modern-day New York City. The film is a smart satire of the more absurd elements of traditional Disney films (including singing rats and pigeons), but of course Giselle’s dewy-eyed goodness wins over the cynical Manhattanites in the end. 

The two films bookend my parenting years: I first watched Enchanted with a visiting college friend while my newborn firstborn slept upstairs; the release of Disenchanted corresponded with that first child’s 15th birthday. 

Disenchanted reunites the stars from the original movie, including Amy Adams as Giselle, Patrick Dempsey as her husband, Robert, and Idina Menzel and James Marsden as the King and Queen of Andalasia (Giselle’s native fairytale kingdom.) Fifteen years later, these actors are all decidedly middle aged. The sequel addresses the question: What comes after “happily ever after?” When it begins, Giselle and Robert are still living in an increasingly cramped Manhattan apartment with their daughter Morgan (a young girl in the original film, she’s now a sarcastic teenager) and their baby daughter, Sofia. In a rather predictable middle-aged move, they decide to relocate to the suburbs, where Giselle is sure that they can make a fresh start. Disney-fied chaos ensues, including talking animals, large musical numbers, and the eventual triumph of goodness and love over evil. 

The movie has received a tepid response from critics. It wasn’t even released in theaters, but was streamed directly to Disney+, which says something. My own children were lukewarm-to-negative in their reviews. A friend who watched Disenchanted with her family said her response was, “What am I watching?” 

That’s all valid if you’re watching Disenchanted purely as a film. But I thought it was brilliant, because about partway through I realized that it wasn’t just a film. That’s when I leaned over and whispered to my husband, “This is the perfect metaphor for perimenopause!”

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

The November of Middle Age

“I think that November might be the most beautiful month,” said my daughter as we drove through the barren brown landscape. A few scraggly leaves clung resolutely to the skeletal tree branches. November, memorialized by Thomas Hood’s bleak poem (a long list of “no’s,” concluding with, “No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! – November!”) is usually far down the list of months ranked by beauty. This daughter turns 15 in two weeks, so she has a vested interest in finding goodness in her birth month. 

And yet, I could see what she meant. The sky gets bigger in November without leaves in the way. The light is spectacular: The sunrises and sunsets become kaleidoscopic shows of orange and purple and are more conveniently witnessed as the daylight contracts towards the middle of the day. And, sorry Thomas Hood, but there are birds – the hardy ones who hunker down for the winter – and they’re easier to appreciate in the absence of competition: the brilliant blue jays, sinister crows, stern red-tailed hawks, and swooping murmurations of starlings.

Here is what I have been thinking about lately: Middle age is a lot like November.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” in The Addison Independent.

The Wedding of My Decade

At the end of July, I attended a friend’s wedding in Indianapolis.

Sounds simple, right? 

Friends, if anything was ever simple, these days nothing is simple.

I was thrilled back in September 2021, when my dear friend and former college roommate, Kristin, texted me a photo of an engagement ring on her finger. Kristin is a dedicated and hardworking pediatrician in Indianapolis, so she’s had little time for romance over the decades since college, but she’d found love at last with a longtime friend and fellow doctor, Jeff. I’d never met Jeff in person, but he’d joined Kristin in tormenting me with pictures and gifts of my greatest living fear: squirrels. I figured it was a good sign; to paraphrase the late Stephen Sondheim, “It’s the friends that you annoy together…that keep marriage intact.”

My first order of business was to figure out exactly where Indianapolis was. (I’m only halfway joking: As someone who has lived on both coasts but whose entire Midwest experience is limited to a few days in Chicago, I conform to the stereotype of those who consider the vast middle of America “flyover country.”)

The next task was to figure out how to get there from here. As with most locations, it’s impossible to get a direct flight from Vermont to Indiana, but I could string together two fairly short flights with a layover in New York City. 

Should I take my entire family? I should not. Although my children love her and look forward to her squirrel-themed gifts every Christmas, Kristin assured me that Indianapolis would be hot, humid, and generally miserable in July. This, combined with the cost of airline tickets, tipped the scales: I would attend the wedding alone. 

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Back to All That

In 1967, the author Joan Didion published an essay called “Goodbye to All That,” in which she attempted to unravel the factors that led from her falling in love with New York City to “the moment it ended” eight years later, when she and her husband moved to Los Angeles.

In 2006, inspired by Didion’s essay, I wrote my own reflection on loving and leaving New York City. Like Didion, I spent the majority of my 20s in Manhattan. Seven years later, I was preparing to move with my husband to Berkeley, California, so that he could attend graduate school. And I was surprised to feel a sense of relief – urgency, even – upon leaving the city about which I’d once written, “Finally, I am home. New York City is where I belong.” 

Reading my words alongside Joan Didion’s, it seems that we both reached the point at which New York City ceased to make us feel young and alive, and started to make us feel old and tired. For her, it was realizing that there was nobody new to meet; for me, it was the creeping gentrification that seemed to be erasing the city I’d moved to seven years before. Echoing Didion, I wrote, “[P]eople whom I might like to meet can no longer afford to live here.”

So I left, and I didn’t return for 16 years – not really. There was one weekend trip in 2008, when my husband and I brought our infant daughter to visit New York as part of an East Coast trip. We stayed with friends in Brooklyn, because by then almost everyone we’d known in Manhattan had moved to the outer boroughs. We found that navigating the city with a 6-month-old was an entirely different experience: less fun, more harrowing. When we visited those same Brooklyn friends in 2018, we set foot in Manhattan only to catch the ferry for Ellis Island. 

But it’s worth noting that about 20 years after she penned “Goodbye to All That,” Joan Didion moved back to New York City and remained there for the rest of her life. 

Last week, I returned to New York City, too.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.