B. MARWO - AUTHOR & BOOKS

Three or four times a month, I spend my days in the company of an eight-year-old. Yesterday, though, I sat with an 80-year-old, a regular visit, though never quite often enough. It strikes me how similar, and yet wildly different, these two worlds can be. Earlier today, I spent an entire hour trying to get an eight-year-old to put down his tablet and eat his lunch (a struggle that happens far too often). Yesterday, I spent an hour trying to keep an 80-year-old awake. Even with his favorite cowboy movies playing on the TV, he kept gently dozing off. And fair enough: at his age, a quiet afternoon drowsiness is well earned. An old saying goes, "Once a man, twice a child." But I'm not sure that holds up anymore. Many kids today seem born ready for the online world, able to track down whatever entertains them in seconds. Books compete harder than ever for their attention. If my 80-year-old loved one was being as a child today I'd have a hard time keeping up with hi...

The Roads We Don’t Go Back To: Midlife, Motherhood, Work and Reinvention Some roads close behind us. Others simply lead somewhere we never expected to go. Today I went out for a walk and noticed the road the caterpillar and excavator had cut into the hillside. The property has been cleared now, ready for the builders. What caught my attention was the rich topsoil exposed beneath all that vegetation. The gardener in me immediately wondered why the owners would plant grass lawns when they could plant vegetables. That is how my mind works. Give me a freshly cleared piece of earth and I start imagining what could grow there. As I looked at that road cut into the hillside, I thought about some of the roads I once imagined taking. A road I left for later Looking back, I laugh at myself - but only a little. I used to think I could go back to school when my children didn't need so much attention after school. It was a slightly ridiculous plan. School-aged children may eventually stop needi...

What Do You Put on a Resume After a 10-Year Career Gap? Learn how to explain a career gap, turn caregiving and self-taught skills into resume strengths, and answer 'What have you been doing?' with confidence. After nearly a decade away from the workforce, I started wondering how to explain a 10-year career gap on my resume. How do you reply to the question: “So, what have you been doing?” A ten-year gap can look enormous on a resume. But a gap in employment doesn't mean a gap in life. Life was happening. I was raising children, caring for family, learning, working on my own projects, and figuring out what came next. If you've stepped away from the workforce to raise children, care for a parent, or deal with life's unexpected turns, you may have more experience to talk about than you realize. Stop apologizing for the gap A career gap isn't a confession, and it doesn't require an apology. You don't have to give an employer a long explanation or defend the ...

Year in Review   On resilience, midlife, change, and finding your way when life doesn't go according to plan This year hasn't allowed for many true breaks. It has been eye-opening, a real Year of the Horse. And this horse has been galloping. The garden usually gives me somewhere to think. This year, even the garden seemed to be struggling to keep up. The weather has been hot enough that much of the garden struggled. The okra stopped bearing. Pomegranates dropped before they matured. The cherries stayed miniature. The harvest was smaller, yet there seemed to be even more leaves to rake. Rainbows have been scarce. I, too, have felt depleted. When the sky turns overcast, it feels like trouble is brewing. I've learned not to rush toward it. Instead, I find something that needs doing. This year, that something was often right in front of me. Most recently, it was a family member's house, which was under renovation for nearly nine months. I went in knowing very little about c...

The River's Embrace: A Life Lived on Both Shores The school bell rings, a distant chime across the water. Our school sits just across the river, a stone's throw, yet a world away. Why endure the long, dusty highway when our destination lies so close? Because this river, the one that gurgles and whispers at the edge of our backyard, is a formidable boundary. Too wide for a simple bridge right here, its moods too swift and unpredictable for an easy crossing. So, a quarter mile upstream, a bridge stands – a testament to necessity. Our daily ritual begins with a careful packing: shoes, dry clothes, precious schoolbooks all sealed tight in a plastic bag, held aloft like a fragile crown. With our free hand, we test the cool, flowing water, a constant companion in our lives. The opposite bank is our dressing room, the sandy shore our temporary sanctuary before we step onto the school grounds, perhaps bare feet sinking into the earth until the very last moment. I've heard whispers,...

  River Crossing after the manner of Robert Frost I'd like to go by the river way again -  not the highway, all heat and hard-topped haste - but the path that loops through the low, green grass, where the cane bends and the birds keep no clock. To walk with bare toes digging into mud, plastic bag stretched overhead like a flag of surrender to weather and wetness - that was the old route, the early road home. There is a bridge, sure - solid, quarter mile upriver, with its rusting nails and rail - but it never felt like mine. A thing built by others who feared the river’s shifting mood. Better to feel the flood’s cold shiver teasing your ribs, or dragging at your knees, than trust to someone else’s timbers. Water, I find, is more honest than men. I was small when I learned to cross alone, though always with eyes from shore watching me - a brother’s, a cousin’s, a neighbor’s glance, or the old man with the limp who smoked leaves and called us fish children. He had a way of knowin...