The Right Pace to Walk Through The Met

And letting other rhythms become your own

It’s fall again, like it always eventually is. And I’m happy in it— wearing sweaters that don’t actually need to be worn, yet. Courting coziness, tensing at weather reports that go above 80.

This summer was a particular one, in part because of the fact that for reasons unknown, both of my daughters share a handful of traits, the top of which is a powerful quality that can only be described as the energizer bunny gene. Though it lives in both of them slightly differently, the basic premise is the same. They do not tire easily. They do not need time to themselves. They are not quiet. They do not need quiet. They are not homebodies, they are not pulled to independent play or calm activities.

For my younger daughter’s second birthday we had friends meet us at our local playground in the morning. The other toddlers lasted an hour or two. My brand-new two year old stayed out for six joyful hours and we had to drag her away for a nap that no passerby would even be able to intuit that she needed. We are not a household of lazy Saturdays or alone time or chill. The girls are big personalities, overflowing with energy, extreme extroverts. And thus we have had to become Playground Parents. It would have been this way with my oldest too at this age, surely, except that Covid closed the playgrounds and so for these specific months early in the 2’s, we were stuck indoors, trying to drum up enough excitement and engagement and activity to replace six hours at the playground.

You can imagine how well this went.

So this summer was magical and exhausting- I logged more playground hours than I had ever before, and I wondered at the way books like Bringing up Bebe insisted I could fold kids into my way of being, when in fact in many ways it is easiest, happiest, to fold yourself into their way. This isn’t a popular parenting take, maybe. But I’ve found that embracing the way my daughters ask me to change is more fruitful, more revelatory and meaningful and workable than trying to shift them into my routines, my preferred ways of being.

I think I thought I became a parent to bring something new into my life, but in fact where I thrive as a parent is in testing myself out, to see if actually I might be someone different than I thought I was, if I can meet the demand of the energizer bunnies, the playground, the later-than-expected bedtimes, the play, the chatter chatter chatter, the endlessness of it all.

This summer asked a lot of me. And sometimes, I met it.

Now suddenly it is fall and school has begun and for the first time in years I have two children out of my care every day. It’s come at either the best or worst imaginable moment. I’m mostly in between revisions, waiting for movement on projects I keep hoping will move, I’m more often than not deadline-less and needing to foster new ideas, decide what is next.

There is no better time than September, with its shifting sun schedule, its rush of new energy, new routines, new expectations, remembered freshness, to plot a path forward. Neither of my children are thrilled with their new September routines, but I am thriving in mine.

In the last few years, as my children have asked me to become a Playground Parent, an Energizer Bunny Parent, a Late-Night Chat Parent, a chill about jumping on the couch and cartwheeling on the couch and flipping on the couch parent, I have also become a new kind of writer.

In these days of figuring out what’s next, what else, what I want to write, I am not diving in the way I used to. I am not writing scenes that feel interesting, putting characters in fraught situations and experimenting with what might happen, hoping that turns into a story. Instead I’m doing what I thought I would never do— which is writing synopses of books I might like to write.

It’s not that I’m just writing these synopses, these pitches. It’s that I am LOVING this work, I’m feeling creatively excited, I’m having those mini-epiphanies that used to be reserved for the revision process or at least the actual-writing-scenes process. Somehow, I am able now to see story on a more macro level, earlier on. I am appreciating the shape a story takes, the necessary conflict that has to be created, the beats that make up an arc, and the structural choices that inform how those story beats collide with storytelling to make tone, vibe, genre, intent, impact.

I have not simply succumbed to the necessity of plotting. I have fallen in love with the forming of the story and the promise that when I finally enter the actual scene-writing, I will know where I’m going, there will be sense and logic embedded into the foundation. I am doing what the story needs now, not just what I enjoy the most. And in embracing that reality, there is actually more space to enjoy the writing, too.

A few weeks ago, I took my older daughter to The Met. We’d had success at the Museum of Natural History, and that mainly seemed to be because she likes museum maps and sparkly jewels, and I knew The Met would have both an extensive map and a display of jewelry. I made a loose scavenger hunt that was more like a poem than an actual hunt— find a painting that makes you feel sad, was an item on her list, because as many synopses as I write, I am still really a writer interested in exposing and exploring emotional truth more than anything else.

The list of paintings to find helped, as did a sketch pad, but I think what made the day magical and long-lasting had to do with something else— the pace at which we moved through the dozens of rooms of this enormous museum. We have been taught that art is to be taken in slowly, that you pause in front of each work, that you read the descriptions. And there is a version of me that would have insisted on teaching my child this way of engaging with art.

But I do not have a slow-moving child. I have an impatient one, and her natural museum pace was fast, unless she was drawing a statue or vase in her book. She seemed to truly enjoy just zooming through rooms, burying herself in her map, zooming some more, very occasionally stopping to hear me say “oh I like Chagall” or “Doesn’t this person look like your cousin?”

When I was pregnant, I clung to the idea that I could create a pace and vibe for my family, that I could set the standard for who we would be. When I was a younger writer, I leaned into my own impulses and wrote the way that came the most naturally, that challenged me the least.

Lately, though, I am finding that I can zoom through a museum and spend a month perfecting a synopsis. My children need me to be to be active and fast and present and electric. My work needs me to be slower, more thoughtful, more regimented, more structured. It is the opposite of what I expected, what I thought would be best for all of us.

Maybe I liked the museum more, at this ridiculous pace. I could have lingered on a few things, sure. But in bending to the natural rhythm of my child, I stayed at the museum for nearly four frenetic hours. There were no fights, there was no stress. In finding her rhythm, I was able to find my own.

The same is true for the synopses. In doing the intricate work upfront, in bending to the will of the story, in doing the thing the work needs instead of what I need, I am able to be free-er, more myself, more creative and impulsive and whimsical when I finally write the scenes.

Tomorrow is the weekend. I imagine I’ll be at at least three playgrounds. My youngest daughter will finish breakfast before I’ve even had a chance to make my own. I will certainly dance to Party in the USA as if the song is brand new, a revelation, the best thing I’ve ever heard. I may take notes on what a character wants in a new idea, or a bit of world-building that will clarify some invented magic. I am meeting these new rhythms with enthusiasm, I am running through museums and lingering in outlines, it is the opposite of what I had imagined: I am supposed to be teaching my children to slow down and chill out. I am supposed to be letting myself be wild and quick and impulsive in my writing. I am supposed to have been in charge of the way things would be.

But the kids need endless action and my work needs measured thought and in this topsy-turvy world where I’m a little less in charge, I have found something so much closer to ease.

It’s fall again, as it always in, and I am new in it. I am sweatered and coffee-ed and new.

News

My upcoming early chapter book (pitched as Monsters Inc meets Princess in Black!), ZOOMI AND ZOE AND THE TRICKY TURNAROUND, has a release date! June 3, 2025 and you can actually preorder it!!!! The second book in the series, ZOOMI AND ZOE AND THE SIBLING SITUATION will come out soon after, in August 2025.

Aimed for ages 4-8, It is silly. It is zany. It features an energizer bunny monster-y friend and a detail oriented human girl, and you can guess what inspired this particular dynamic! It is everything I learned about what young kids are drawn to in their first chapter books and I’m SO excited about it. It features absolutely GORGEOUS illustrations by Anne Appert that I can’t wait to share.

Recommendations

I couldn’t put down this buzzy book. I love something a little speculative, and this was so propulsive, so enthralling, so smartly written, so fun while having emotional depth and truth.

I’ve been experimenting with a fair amount of new recipes after leaving behind Blue Apron and continuing to think about meals that I truly enjoy and feel great after eating. This is at the top of the list. Even the ardent salmon-hater in my life enjoys this one.

And to balance out that meal, my older daughter and I discovered this FANTASTIC recipe that tastes SO MUCH LIKE my mother’s famous coffee cake (those who know me and her IRL can attest!) that I just had to eat a billion pieces of it to make sure it was true. Simple, fun to make with a kid, and just delicious.

Lastly— did everyone already know that Hanna Anderson has its own secondhand marketplace???? I somehow missed the memo, and I’m in my second-hand, thrifting and rental clothes era, so this came as a very welcome surprise. I can’t recommend enough their super super soft marshmallow sweaters for any of the fabric-sensitive kids in your life, and I got some great cardigan ones for my kid at super reduced prices in this secondhand section! Perfect quality, great selection, where have I been all these years???