Poem for a Sunday Morning

February 16                                               An early morning fog. In fair weather, the shy past keeps its distance. Old loves, old regrets, old humiliations look on from afar. They stand back under the trees. No

Poem for a Sunday Morning

Pocket Poem {Ted Kooser) If this comes creased and creased again and soiled as if I’d opened it a thousand times to see if what I’d written here was right, it’s all because I looked too long for you to put in your pocket. Midnight says the little gifts of loneliness come wrapped by nervous

Truth and Consolation

Everything in the first list is true. Everything in the second list is also true. TRUTH Life is hard.* You are not important. Your life is not about you. You are not in control. You are going to die CONSOLATION Yes, it’s hard. It’s also joyful and magnificent. Which do you choose to focus on?

Poem for a Sunday Morning

The Peace of Wild Things {Wendell Berry} When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the

#37 – Eat What You Want (It’s your birthday)

Years ago when I was downplaying another birthday as “just another day” and “not a big deal,” a friend suggested otherwise. She said that the day of our birth is inherently important because it is the day we started being us. It matters that we are here and because that wasn’t always so – and

#35 – Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously

David Byrne, with his performances of Once in a Lifetime and Toe Jam on Saturday Night Live, shows us how it’s done. (And, if the videos I’ve posted below don’t show up on your device, do a quick search…it’s worth it.) Cool + Fun + Talented + Fearless + Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously =

#22 – Time Alone

This is #22 in the series, “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For.” Here’s another one you might like. How I Go to the Woods Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable. I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the

#20 – It’s ok to be “Good Enough”

This is #20 in the series, “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For.” Here’s another one I keep going back to. The following passage is from an article by Jennifer Kunst in which she provides a compelling interpretation of Donald Winnicott’s theory of the “good enough mother.” As you read it I invite you to do so in a way

#16 – You’ve Got it Better Than You Think

This is #16 in the series, “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For.” Here’s another one that I like a lot. I can’t remember when it was and I can’t remember who said it but the idea they expressed has served me well every time I’ve allowed my (mostly) “1st world problems” to get me down. It

#15 – You are the one you’ve been waiting for

#15 in the series, “50 Ideas Worth Fighting For. Love After Love {Derek Walcott} The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was