As passionate as I can be about things, I’ve only just begun to connect with the spectrum of emotions I had buried all my life under the stoicism. When you reflect on your day as you turn out the lights, you are in fact revisiting how you felt about it, not what you thought about… Read More The Tyranny of Feelings
DAWNING Even in my happy indifference to athletics, striving is something I could understand. The Olympian presses on toward the moment that will redeem the years and pleasures and normalcy he had laid on the altar of glory, challenging the unrivaled to best himself. But men who attack one another—invite the blows and blood—and go… Read More Greatness: The Art of War
His scream sucked me cold out of sleep. It had just turned midnight and as the dream evaporated, I did not know I would rest again only after dawn. My son had woken—yet again to spit thick, cloudy coughs into a waiting mountain of Kleenex. Tennyson cried, holding the ice pack down on his head,… Read More Where Beauty Dare Thrive
I couldn’t believe I was holding it, procured so easily from the public library: “The only known novel by a female African-American slave, and quite possibly the first novel written by a black woman anywhere,” read the cover jacket of The Bondwoman’s Narrative. Harvard Professor Henry Gates, Jr. who had laid hold of the original… Read More Greatness: The Bondwoman’s Narrative
stargazers in furious bloom – vanilla air – are the only flowers that trust me, tell me i am not hopeless; the juice in their veins, the way they gulp the sun and meet my face, their beauty and their business say i don’t need a green thumb and the riotous garden. all one needs… Read More stargazers
1. Individuality and community. Blogging gives us the best of both, lets us develop our self in “the collective heartbeat”. (Anne Lamott) 2. The freedom. Anything goes: some days this is my own TED stage or talk show. On others, my stand-up. Sometimes it’s my notebook. 3. The empowering. You can take yourself as seriously… Read More The Best Things About Blogging
“He told of how the trees had grown in all sorts of conditions, endured lightning strikes and windstorms and infestations. [The boat builder] said the wood taught us about survival, about overcoming difficulty, but it also taught us about the reason for surviving in the first place. Something about infinite beauty, about things larger and… Read More Happy Hard Year
How is it that Facebook famously feeds depression? The Happiest Virtual Place On Earth can feel like one endless reminder of the Things That Are Missing in our life. Offline, I look at the people around me. My single friends would give an arm to be married. Those with families of their own each have… Read More Why Everybody Else Is Happier Than You
1. Develop amnesia. Find some way to forget what he did. Or (again) didn’t do. Go without sleep or spin 50 times to reduce cognitive faculty. Stick a finger in the socket. 2. If biting your tongue hurts too much, pop some chocolate. Sure, every time. 3. Lie. Tell yourself he’s listening. The short-lived delusion… Read More Secrets to a Happy Marriage: For Women
Now, why’s the AC dying again? We just fixed it. Weird. Car’s sluggish, too. Mph: 70. 60. 50. 45. Ok. Gotta pull over. I run the hazard lights and crawl over two lanes to the shoulder – just in time. The Sienna gives out and it takes me a minute to realize the hood’s smoking.… Read More STRANDED
A Holistic Journey 