Life, unadulterated.
“Be free where you are.” -Thich Nhat Hanh Have you ever thought about the way we cling to the idea of perfect? A perfect body. Perfect teeth. Perfect home. Perfect marriage. Perfect life. We want the new car smell to last forever. The wedding party to keep going. Our children to stay tiny and sweet.…
I’ve always had an eye for the good stuff. (Pictured: me reading a Harlequin trashy novel at the age of 1. Upside-down.) I turn 37 in a few hours (Monday). I am usually a person who likes to celebrate a birthday. I enjoy buying my own presents and planning my ideal day, but this…
There are so many reasons to feel disappointed by life. The job you didn’t get. The writing submissions that were rejected. The relationships that didn’t last. Personal failures. Natural disasters. Political shutdowns, bad behavior, a series of unfortunate events. The list is endless. Last weekend I felt like an Uber driver as I shuffled the…
I try not to talk about politics on my blog because that’s not why people come here, but politics are actually a big part of who I am, and in this essay I share with you a personal story about my late husband (who had earrings and wore a trenchcoat when I met him) how…
2018 in review, January to December. “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” –Soren Kierkegaard I think one of the best consequences of experiencing a loss is the way that we grow to value intentionality. When the universe pulls aside the curtain and shows us how brutal and tedious…
I could feel something percolating in my body before I was conscious of the shift in my mood. It was in the heaviness of my limbs and the labor of my breath. Then came the familiar spiraling thoughts that spun around and around and around, my mind unspooling into a thousand threads I could not…
The Thanksgiving table has changed considerably in the last two decades. Grandparents have passed. Relatives have become estranged. Children have grown. My husband’s chair is empty. My sister is off at her in-law’s. There are not many of us left. Sometimes I am sad about these facts. I long to be the child again, playing…
