Advent 2020: Encroaching Darkness, Wide Awake
A few days ago, I remembered. “Crap! It’s almost Advent. Will I write again this year?” There are a million reasons not to. I often get hooked by an insidious [...]
Muffins and Other Good Things
Like many of you, the following monikers flock together in a description of my week: Hopeful, fearful, exhilarating, under-stimulated, connected, lonely, annoyed, content, overwhelmed, underwhelmed. A bundle of opposites, sometimes [...]
Favorite Reads of 2020
I read 91 books in 2020. For anyone that’s unhealthily keeping track like I am, that’s 29 LESS than I read in 2019. (You can read last year’s recommendations here [...]
How to take a Solo Retreat
I’m here again, honoring the commitment I made to myself a year ago that I would take a quarterly solo retreat. This is a practice that was modeled to me [...]
Mothering is just One Kind of Love
Every year, I share the same thoughts about Mother's Day. I wake up thinking about them, usually in this order: My children, Wyatt and Loretta, are fascinating, tender marvels. And that [...]
Kitchen Essentials
A reader just wrote and asked my opinion about pots and pans. I sent her to Mark Bittman's excellent advice on a no-frills kitchen: Best Tips for Avoiding Stupid Kitchen [...]
Beginning Again
My friend Janel and I met for our “writing group” this morning. This sacred, monthly ritual consists of taking up a table at Camber for at least two hours, talking [...]
What Do You Miss?
I’m writing in April 2020, which will be remembered as the Time of Coronavirus. Everything is changing, and everything will be changed. It’s almost automatic for me to begin making [...]
Turn that Filter On
Kind people know all about filtering their thoughts. They understand that being “themselves” is a threat they must take pains to spare everyone else from experiencing—especially anyone they care about.—from [...]