Monthly Archives: August 2022

I am almost finished reading Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart; actually I am listening to the audiobook, narrated by Brown herself, and let me just say—feels like Brene is talking directly to me, like we are having a conversation and she is revealing to me the secrets of my heart. When she got toContinue reading “One Step at a Time”

I am very affected by sunlight. I favor summer over winter, prefer tank tops to scarves and gloves, and love late spring and summer fruits like cherries and watermelon. And dark grey autumn days, cold that gets in your bones—not really to my liking. Yet, (strangely perhaps?) I find the early morning hours, before theContinue reading “Soothing the Soul”

Anger gets a bad rap. Especially for women. We are raised to be demure, deferential, self-sacrificing, patient. Basically—need-less, emotion-less, opinion-less. And anger, well, anger just isn’t pretty. When we express our anger, we are either told to calm down or we get called that last resort of insults, the very uncreative and overused bitch. ButContinue reading “Medusa”

Why is it, a friend and I were discussing recently, that as we get older, we seem to revisit certain stories? What we eventually came to, my friend and I, was that we are seeking some sort of resolution. Or understanding. Or healing. This reminds me of lines from the poem “Becoming Seventy” by currentContinue reading “House of Knowledge”

Every now and then I feel like a computer that must push the restart button. Maybe I’ve been rushing about or I am worrying about the state of the world or state of my family or maybe I didn’t sleep well the night before. Maybe Mercury is in retrograde…I don’t even know what that means,Continue reading “The Delight Muscle”

This past week was filled with joyous late-night conversations with my daughters, discovering cafes and kitchen shops and bookstores, and resting in the shade of the ancient trees surrounding the Capitol Building. It was bittersweet, as I helped my eldest daughter unpack and move into her new DC home. And there was an emptiness inContinue reading “Emptiness and Fullness”

Can we truly know another person? Can we truly know ourselves? Should we even try? This was my primary question as I read poet Saeed Jones’ memoir, How We Fight for Our Lives. Jones explains how anticlimactic was the experience of coming out to his mother. He writes, I came out to my mother asContinue reading “One truth…many truths?”