Is there a more complicated and conflicted relationship than the one we have with our bodies? And that’s just on the conscious level! Who knows what is going on in our subconscious. But I got a little window into that deeper realm when a friend […]
All posts filed under: creative nonfiction
Mona Lisa
I was once involved with a person who would receive bad news with a sort of half-smile. It’s hard to put into words what that expression seemed to mean. There was a knowing, wistful quality to it, as if he understood that life cannot always […]
The Yang of Your Yin
Growing up, my sister and I were always “the girls.” We were a duo, a team, always in complementary consort, covering all the bases. Amy was science, I was art. Amy was reason-based, I was emotion. Amy was practical. I was extravagant. But together we […]
A thousand tiny humble things
When I was younger, I was overtaken by premenstrual syndrome (PMS) in a way that sometimes made me nervous to get in the car for fear I might do something impulsive when PMS was behind the wheel. I made an appointment with my OB/GYN but […]
A Blessing for the Lives We Actually Have
“Blessing” is one of those words I avoided for the longest time. I would never say, “Bless you,” when someone sneezed because, for one, I didn’t really know what it meant, and for another, my family didn’t do that. We didn’t say anything at all […]
Abracadabra. The (Delusional) Stories We Tell Ourselves
I once knew a couple who took stock of their marriage every year to decide if they were going to renew the contract. There is something ghastly about undergoing an annual performance review of your love, but it does speak to the need to ward […]
How Does Your Dinner Taste
Sometimes we get so tangled up in our mind we have a hard time seeing clearly — being able to see where we are — which is why this poem by a young Japanese schoolboy* is so startling: In the middle of Japan, surrounded byThe […]
Moon Rock
Several lifetimes ago I moved to Washington, DC and married a man who made it a habit to regularly visit the Air & Space Museum. On his way in and on his way back out he would touch the moon rock on display at the […]
Recognizing Lovely
We all want to feel alive and feel the vitality of life coursing through us but lately my hands have made me aware of the very opposite, aware of vitality slipping away. Lately, these hands have become a big problem in my life. I’ve got […]
Philip Henderson, Here I Come
Philip Henderson, though I don’t know you, there were apparently a great many things I needed to tell you about myself. To you, I was an unknown middle-aged woman who showed up in your driveway early one Saturday morning while you stood outside enjoying a […]
Plum
Something in my mind said “Plum,” so I circled back home on my green Schwinn 10-speed once again. I’d already done this 7, 8, 9 times. It was a beautiful summer afternoon, not too hot for an aimless cruise around town, but those plums were […]
I’m so happy
Sometimes when I go about trying to be present, I wonder if I might be corrupting — just a wee bit — the actual living of my life with all that deliberate, effortful awareness. The extra awareness can almost make it feel like I’ve created […]
Be cool. 