When I take care of my grandsons, the oldest and I have a personal joke between us. He will inevitably say, “So Nanny, do you think today will be a hot cup of tea day?”

It came about over several months of caring for them. I would plan to sit down with a hot cup of tea and relax for 10 minutes but would always have to get up for one reason or another. Then, when I finally got to drink my tea, it was always cold. 

When my youngest was three years old, our family went to a barbecue at my oldest son’s high school. My husband drove his work van so he could bring grilles, food, and my oldest to help out, and I drove our station wagon with the rest of the boys.

On my bookshelf is a very small volume entitled “Dear Professor Einstein.” This book of Albert Einstein’s letters to and from children is dog-eared because it combines two of my favorites—the genius, the teacher, and the refreshingly human Albert Einstein, and the hilarious, often poignant, honesty of children. 

by Mary Clifford Morrell

“Creativity - like human life itself - begins in darkness,” writes Julia Cameron, in the “Artist’s Way.”

Certainly, the darkness of the past year and a half is proof of that, with both adults and children struggling to find a way to not lose their sense of security, purpose, and passion in a unique time of isolation.

Many are finding, as we emerge into the light, that there is still work to be done to confront the residual anxiety, grief, and fear.

If someone were to ask me what one of my greatest challenges as a parent is, I would quickly admit to overthinking—a form of mental clutter.

Overthinking, I believe, is often at the heart of much anxiety, worry, even insomnia, all of which seem to be, not surprisingly, at epidemic levels today. How often do we think, “If I could just turn off my brain for a while, maybe I could get some sleep.”