The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother's Memoir

by Katrina Kenison

Book Overview

The Gift of an Ordinary Day is an intimate memoir of a family in transition-boys becoming teenagers, careers ending and new ones opening up, an attempt to find a deeper sense of place, and a slower pace, in a small New England town. It is a story of mid-life longings and discoveries, of lessons learned in the search for home and a new sense of purpose, and the bittersweet intensity of life with teenagers--holding on, letting go. Poised on the threshold...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446409480
• ISBN13: 9780446409483
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

a not-so-ordinary gift to readers

This book has been a gift to me just when I needed it the most..right at the beginning of the holiday season when finding the perfect gift for everyone on my list has begun to consume my every hour. Browsing the book store with list in hand, I picked up Kenison's book along with several others and sat down to scan my choices. Half an hour later I was deep into the book and its simple, yet beautifully written, message that spoke to me of a life that could be calmer, more appreciated, and more meaningful. My shopping was over for the day. I bought the book as a gift to me and plan to suggest it to my book club to start the new year's reading. The sub-title, A Mother's Memoir, targets a limited audience, but the book will appeal more broadly than that. I've read paragraphs to my husband and his response surprised me. Maybe there is hope for the male gender after all.

Extraordinary Book "The Gift of an Ordinay Day"

What a lovely and gracious gift of a book! A friend gave me this book and I am so glad she did, I am just going through a life transformation, turning 52, asking what is next, you know how that is. I read this book at bedtime, flipping through reading here and there, falling into little bits of story and thinking about my own story. What a great guide, what a gentle nudge toward change, Katrina Kenison's account of her ordinary days clued me into the grace in my ordinary days. This book will make a great holiday gift for a friend, sister, mother, daughter, child or parent facing change and growth. I know I found it a very personal gift to receive and am confident it is a great gift to give. By the way, the cover is beautiful, the pages are made of thick paper, it feels good in the hand just like a gift should!

Trail Markers for the Practice of Letting Go--Great Holiday Gift Idea for all Parents!

It's always both comforting and practical to have a guide who goes before you, marking the trail and highlighting some of the beauty and challenges of the adventure. Katrina Kenison offers parents insights, ideas, and questions to ponder as they travel the life long practice of letting go. While this book focuses on letting older children fly away from the nest, the practice of letting go really begins at the time of their birth. The author's beautiful description of universal, ordinary, everyday moments, felt like it was speaking directly to me. I'm going to send this book to many parents this holiday season!

I love this book...for any one who is going into the empty nest.

This book is heart warming. I am a mother of two boys going through the transition of the last one leaving the nest and heading off to college. She writes so beautifully of how she was guided to simplify their life, by moving out of the known into the unknown. She describes what we all go through on some level with the major transitions in life. Moving, one in college, last one in high school, a supportive husband, living with parents again...etc. This book details how they all adjusted to it all. I love that she wrote of her life story.....we all have one....I feel that I can cry, as I read along with Katrina knowing that we all have something in common. Thank you for sharing your story.

A must read!

If you are middle aged and dealing with children who are adolescents or pre- (or post-) adolescents and are wondering why your life is so complicated and longing for a life that is simpler and more meaningful, then this is definitely the book for you! Approaching her 50's, Katrina Kennison suddenly finds herself overcome with longing for a life where her family is more connected and not so overwhelmed by appointments and schedules and materialism and all those issues which make a family that was close when the children were young into a family of strangers when the children grow into adolescents. She decides to uproot her family from Boston back to her childhood home in New Hampshire and falls in love with a summer cabin on 80 acres of land with a view of mountains and a pond, stream and woodlands. The cabin proves unlivable and eventually needs to be torn down for a new dwelling but, during the summer her family lives there without the benefit of computers and other accepted city distractions, they learn how to become a family again. At first resistant, they eventually slow down, read books, play catch, explore the land, watch the stars, and generally have a wonderful time enjoying their new lives. Throughout the ensuing few years of dealing with the potential empty nest, Katrina comes to find herself, find a new occupation, new friends, a new life altogether. She finds the meaning in her existence--a meaning that had been missing in their former busy city lives. Although the prose is beautiful, it could be edited...that is the only fault I could find with this book. It is a heart-wrenching, speak-to-the gut book for any woman (or person) in their 40's, 50's or 60's, with children or without; to anyone who has questioned the meaning of their busy life and wondered what it would be like to live differently, to live a more simple, slower existence. I cannot recommend this book highly enough--it has changed my life and the way that I look at and address my college-age children. Instead of hanging on to them, I now see that they need to find their own paths through life and this book has helped me to let go and to learn to find meaning in myself and my life as more than a mother. It is long but beautifully written; in places it is not easy to hear what the author has to say; but, believe me...every word of hers has the kind of value that will change your life.