Category: Transformation
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AJ’s Master Class #2
Hello loves, I just got another beautiful “AJ’s impact on my life” letter and it connected to the second thing I would have talked about at the funeral if I’d taken more time. As I mulled the letter over, I half-remembered a poem that referenced that topic. That same night, as I went through my…
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eulogy for a baby
My baby nephew AJ died two weeks ago. His parents, my brother and his wife, asked me to give the eulogy at the funeral. One would think that distilling a life that only lasted gestation + 5 weeks could perhaps be a tricky thing, but in fact it was easy. After sifting through hundreds of…
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Grocery Store Grace
Yesterday I made a quick run to the grocery store a mile down the road, an entire world away. Instead of the fresh, organic, independent brand, small batch, sexy imported or even sexier locally produced and lovingly packaged food that I like to get at the Food CoOp, Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, most everything there…
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The Ultimate Existential Hack
I have this trick that makes shitty things easier to bear. Ready? Lean closer. Here it is – I have a theory that, before I came to earth, God and I went on a little date.
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Hamsa, or The Time I Almost Got Blown Up By A Possible Terrorist
Hilde and I took a train back to Madrid from Italy that summer. We had just walked five hundred miles across northern Spain as peregrinas on the pilgrim trail of Santiago de Compostela with many of our siblings and several friends and decided to treat ourselves to a week of recuperation on the beaches of…
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Third Person Love
Self-care can become a whole new world (cue Aladdin, please) when we think of ourselves in the third person. As in “I’ll bet Naomi would really love it if someone washed this three-week pile-up of dishes here in the sink for her.” Invariably, I’m willing to do an act of loving service for a friend…
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On Being Single. Or rather, On Being Lonely. Because the two are not (always) the same.
I recently spent time with a friend who is grieving the death of her husband of 26 years. She noticed that we’re switching places. She is now single and I’m happily partnered up. She wanted to know if I had any tips on how to do it well. This being-single-business. I was flattered, mainly because…
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To Peel an Egg
“If you don’t stop eating those, you’ll get diarrhea!” my mother used to warn. One of my brothers would accompany her dire prophecy with the appropriate sound effect, at which point we’d all collapse into giggles. And we always ignored the warning. How could we not?
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Albergue de Ada
As I walked into the town of Reliegos on the Camino de Santiago, I was looking for an albergue called Albergue de Prada. I didn’t see any signs for that one immediately, but I did see indications for Albergue de Ada, which hadn’t show up on my comprehensive albergue list. Thinking that perhaps the…
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L’Chaim
“The day you cease to burn with love, many others will die of the cold.” François Mauriac Carol Burton 22 April 05:22 pm Well, this has been a long time coming, thankfully, but Tim has now entered the stage of active dying. The hospice nurse said she couldn’t give us a time frame, but it’s…
Behind the Blue Door 