Mama Joon Chronicles

On turning 40

I’ve been thinking about my 25-year-old self a lot lately. I was in grad school, having fun, engaged to a good guy, envisioning a…

Dread Paralysis

My 9-year-old is navigating tricky social dynamics at school. I worry about who she spends her time with, about the choices she’s making. She’s a good kid. I want her to be ok. But mean girl culture is alive and well, and she’s getting older, and she’s growing up in an era where bullies can hide…

(Un)Comfortably Numb

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Dirty Feet

Almost 15 years ago, I watched the sun set out the window of my West LA apartment, my head snuggled on the chest of my long-distance boyfriend, who was visiting from Colorado for the weekend. We had just woken up from a nap after riding our bikes all over Santa Monica that day.

Same, but different

I’ve started hugging people again.

I used to be a shy, kind of polite hugger, but these days, I really go for it. Fully inoculated and ready to revive a connection with anyone and everyone who holds a place in my heart, I get in there, noticing and memorizing the…

What is this life right now?

As the morning progresses, I nervously refresh the AirNow page on my laptop while trying to focus on what work absolutely has to get done before I get the call. Just as I refresh again to discover the AQI has spiked sharply, my phone buzzes with a message from my kids’ outdoor…

They Escape Me

I have always found immense comfort in the written word. When I was 6 or 7, I was feeling sad one day, so I wrote a poem about it…

Where the Light Comes in

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. -Ernest Hemingway

From the outside looking in to other people’s lives, we seem to observe that some people experience more hardship and pain than others, and some seem to just have…