Overwhelmed? It’s OK to “Cry Uncle!”
I had tea this week with a close friend, one of the most kind, competent, and generous people I know. Also one of the most ill. In the ideal world, she would just have one job: her own healing, but in this world, she has to handle finances, deal with a big home repair, consult […]
Surviving Mile 19
“Hitting the wall” is the term runners use to describe the moment when the bottom seems to fall out of their stamina, major exhaustion sets in, and doubt may surface about whether it’s even worth continuing. Statistically, it’s most likely to happen around Mile 19. It’s not too different from that moment described by mythologists and […]
Enjoying the dog days of summer (a pause)
The dog days of summer are here, but as our temperatures in the Northwest head toward 90 (remember, few of us have air conditioning), our dogs are wilting with the rest of us. Seems like a good time for all of us to grab a cool drink and do less, unless, of course, you are […]
How to Celebrate a Birthday with 72 Delights
Birthdays are a funny thing. When I was six, a birthday expanded my world. It meant more adventures, a later bedtime, and an allowance. But at sixty, my birthday felt less promising. The end horizon on life felt so much closer. How do we celebrate that? With style, I say, or, everyone in their own special way. The first […]
Let these quotes about the creative process inspire yours
While I know that reading about creativity isn’t the same as making something (and reading about writing isn’t the same as writing), I love reading quotes by fellow creatives when I can’t have my fingers in paint, my hands in the soil, or my wrists on the keyboard. Spending time in creative processes has brought […]
The one tool you need most when you want to create
We’re all creative—and can express our creative spark in endless ways. Yet when it comes to expressing ourselves we’re often handicapped by old myths and messages, like: If a good friend shared one of these messages, you’d tell them not to believe it. But when you hear one of these thoughts pounding inside your skull, […]
The Gift of the Ordinary
Grief knocked again—or, more accurately, knocked me off my feet and left me wailing. You’d think after writing about grief, I’d know to anticipate such a thing—or find an easier way through the aftermath of my sister’s death. But no, Grief was as tough as ever. And then, just as I regained my balance, my […]
Letting the tulips sing
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”] [et_pb_row admin_label=”row”] [et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] Can flowers sing? No way to prove this but recently they sang to me. Finding new colors I recently returned from visiting a friend who’s dying of cancer. In leaving, my heart filled with achingly beautiful sounds and the rich melancholy of grieving. Did grief have a color? […]
To practice receiving
A dear friend living in the shadows of cancer, With death on the horizon, Sat with me and said, “Throughout my life, I never learned to receive… Now I may have to.” My mother spent her final two years on her back In hospice care. It was almost as if, After a life of doing […]
Tiny beautiful acts—a 100-day creative challenge
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”] [et_pb_row admin_label=”row”] [et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] Could devoting yourself to tiny acts of beauty, gratitude, or creation for 100 days change your life? It did for Suleika Jaouad, a writer who, in her early twenties, invented a 100-day project to help her deal with her leukemia treatments. In her book Between Two Kingdoms: A […]
