Author Archive | Beth Mende Conny

I just found this essay in one of my laptop folders. Although I wrote it a few years back, it still holds true. (FYI: Evil Child is my older daughter, Julia.) So, there we were in the kitchen, watching Hubby Joe open his Father’s Day gifts. Jenna, 17, gave him a month’s cable subscription to the Tennis Channel. Julia, 25, baked him cupcakes. I got him underwear. Julia looked at the underwear and said: “Is this […]

I am engaged! A startling piece of news, perhaps, coming from someone who just celebrated her 30th wedding anniversary. But true nonetheless, though not in the traditional ”I’m engaged” sense. How to explain this one? Well … I’ve been thinking lately (another startling piece of news) about the distance I create between myself and others, and how I sometimes think of people as distractions that take me away from … Hell, I don’t know. I […]

I’m often asked what it’s like to be a writer — how I spend my days, how I experience the world. And so I will be sharing occasional essays from the front lines of my writing life. Enjoy! For a time, my friend Sheree worked in my city, and sometimes she’d shoot me a text before her long commute home. Leaving Bethville. It always made me smile. It was a loving wave between friends, friends who saw each other too […]

Note: This post is from my earlier days as a parenting columnist. One day, I will hand it off to my daughters, to help them win the gold. My daughter has discovered a new spectator sport: watching Mommy go to the bathroom. So much for privacy, but I only have myself to blame. After all, I’m the one who opened the door of opportunity to her, so to speak. I did it because I thought […]

I’m often asked what it’s like to be a writer — how I spend my days, how I experience the world. And so I will be sharing occasional essays from the front lines of my writing life. Enjoy! Today I woke feeling blue. And I said to myself, “I feel blue.” And then, “Why blue?” Blue is the color of sea and sky and beloved denim. In the Feng Shui pantheon of colors, it’s at the top for promoting peace […]

I wrote this piece years ago, when I was launching two careers: writer and mom. Both paid poorly and I had to share an office with someone who didn’t clean up after herself. Still I managed, even in the face of adversity, as this piece attests. I’m a mom who works at home. For those who think I’m being redundant — what mom doesn’t work at home? — let me be specific: I work for […]

I’m often asked what it’s like to be a writer — how I spend my days, how I experience the world. And so I will be sharing occasional essays from the front lines of my writing life. Enjoy! I stand here in the stillness of a night not yet formed, scanning the blue for an early star, and I wish, as I’ve done since a child: Might I get my wish tonight. There’s no talk […]

I’m often asked what it’s like to be a writer — how I spend my days, how I experience the world. And so I will be sharing occasional essays from the front lines of my writing life. Enjoy! I’m in Panera’s. Across from me is a mother and daughter. I’m guessing the mom’s in her sixties, the daughter in her thirties. They’re talking loud enough so I can’t concentrate on my writing but soft enough […]

Note: I wrote this piece in August, 2013, about Jenna, my youngest, a few weeks before she moved into her own apartment.  Near tears. I would be in tears, but Jenna, my youngest, will be awake soon, and little girls don’t like to see mommies cry, it throws them off, scares them. But mommies do cry, and though she is still my little girl, she’s soon to be 19. She’s home for the summer and […]