The Price
I’ve been creating a series of novels with a recurring theme: the price of the life we desire. (You can get yourself a chapter right here.) They explore relationships, career choices, and feeling right in your own skin. It’s a theme that has woven through nearly every choice I’ve made in my adult life. [In…
Summer Reading
It’s been a lovely summer, hasn’t it? In case you think I’ve sent out this email six months too late, in New Jersey it’s been hard to remember that it’s still February. Basking in the warm weather, I’ve been thinking about long days, the sounds of the ocean, and a good, juicy book. In honor…
The Gift Of A Week Gone Wrong
It’s been a very odd week. My daughter had surgery to rebuild a knee destroyed in a bad ski accident, our first foray into major medical issues. The two of us spent four days camped out in the living room, the upstairs bedrooms no longer accessible. I worked (inefficiently), she slept, and we…
Call Me A Snowflake
I woke the other morning to a snowstorm outside my window. It was coming down in thick, chunky clumps, with nary a delicate snowflake to be found. I was reminded of something I had read, written by a person who equated those condemning the current administration to ‘snowflakes’. I had to think about that…
Snowglobe of the Mind
“Each one of us is called to become that great song that comes out of the silence, and the more we let ourselves down into that great silence the more we become capable of singing that great song.” –David Steindl-Rast Imagine you have a snow globe in your pocket. Going through your day, it…
The Library of Guiding Principles
“To be well informed, one must read quickly a great number of merely instructive books. To be cultivated, one must read slowly and with a lingering appreciation the comparatively few books that have been written by men who lived, thought, and felt with style.” — Aldous Huxley Do you like books? I sure do.…
Wise Words
Many years ago, I began to compile a list of inspirational thoughts and sayings. Originally, they were for my students – I would use them as themes for my yoga classes – and then became points of wisdom to share with my clients and my community. Today, that list is 33 pages long and should…
Poem Bonanza
2017 feels poetic, doesn’t it? I remember learning poetry in school. Even when I could tell a poem was important, or powerful, I struggled to understand what it meant. From the lyric poetry of the Greeks, to Elizabethan sonnets, to Haiku, it always left me a bit… lost. I’m not sure if it was life…
For My Mothers
The flavor is not quite the same. I don’t lack access to any ingredient, spice or seasoning one can imagine, nor the ability to have it. I don’t lack culinary experience, as a once-professional chef. I don’t lack desire. The texture is not quite the same. I don’t lack the availability of any technology…
Not Already Behind
It is still 2016 when I write these words, although the ball drop is quickly approaching. It has been a long, difficult year. I did not imagine, one year ago, what this year would hold, although in retrospect, all the elements were presenting themselves to me, waiting to be deciphered. It was a…