About

My name is Rachael. Welcome to my blog!

I call this blog The Variegated Life because I like the word variegated, suggesting autumn trees tossing the sunlight in their many-colored leaves. I prefer to think of my life as variegated rather than as fragmented, although at times my variegated life — a motley patchwork of mothering, relationships, jobs, writing, zazen, reading, running, housekeeping — feels far less beautiful than a sunlit tree.

Indeed, I often have no idea what I’m doing. And I make many mistakes. Many, many mistakes. Daily. And so I’ve made a talisman of my beloved Fool. Just look at him! He’s about to walk off a cliff! And yet I trust that he’ll be OK. I believe that he can walk on air. In fact, I believe that we’re all walking on air, really. Aren’t we all making it up as we go along through our various, variegated lives?

As I make my way, I write. I write about finding balance as a work-at-home mother, parenting, the creative life, and feminism. I write about making small changes toward living in accord with the environment. And I write about books.

I hope that you’ll follow along.

About Me

I grew up in the suburbs of Connecticut and then moved to New York City the moment I graduated from college. That was more than seventeen years ago. Since then I’ve lived on the Upper West Side, on Long Island (a six-month mistake), in Washington Heights, in the Bronx, and in Brooklyn, which is actually where I had wanted to be all along. Hey, it took me only seven years to get here.

Here I am, in a café in Paris. I am pointing because I am saying something very smart. Or maybe I’m just pointing at the menu.

Among other things, I’m a poet and a work-at-home mom. To hear me read some of my poems (at the KGB Bar!) click here and here. I’ve also had work published in The Mom Egg and Rattle. My work-at-home gigs include teaching an online creative writing class with the Writers Studio and writing and editing materials for K–12 and college students.

About My Family

If you read through the archives, you’ll see that I used to call my husband Beckett. The name was after Samuel Beckett, not Josh (though we are fans of him, too — or maybe were fans, up until the craptastic conclusion of the 2011 season). Since Thanksgiving 2011, I’ve been calling him by his real name, which is Brian. Among other things, he’s an artist. We were married in a rose garden.

Here’s Brian in 2006, at a Portland Sea Dogs game. It happened to be Jacoby Ellsbury’s AA debut. I had never heard of Ellsbury then, but my husband knew all about him. In those days, he subscribed to Baseball America. However, Brian grew up in Minnesota. His being a Red Sox fan is all my fault.

We have two kiddos: the Critter and the Gnome.