Breaking the Age Code
True confessions: I haven’t yet completed reading this book—Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long & Well You Live, by Becca Levy, PhD—but (more confessions), as with all books I read, I have already skimmed…
“Every single drop of it.”
In a slim volume of just 62 poems with cover art from her painter mother, Ada Limón manages to articulate the wonders of the world and voices—especially in three specific poems—the texture and flavor of issues at the core of…
“Time for a Little Something”
What constitutes the perfect food? There is, of course, no one answer nor even a short list, especially given the wide range of contexts—budget and availability, geography and culture, lifestyle and stage of life, hunger level and health needs—in which…
10,000 Hours
R. and I have lived on this cul de sac, in the house we’re in now, since November of 2015, the longest we’ve lived in one home since we married in July of 1990. One of the South Asian families…
No Words for This
A woman I have known and admired for years told me today that she has a rare and aggressive cancer, that she will soon receive surgery to remove it, that her body will be forever changed by this experience, both…
Art as Teacher
My mind today is almost entirely on tomorrow’s solidarity walk. (Please join us at noon, if you’d like—the details are in the post/email on March 5.) I first learned about the transformative power of art—both in the making and sharing…
Walking and Breathing
A reminder of the invitation to you—and everyone you want also to invite—to gather next Saturday, March 19, at noon, at the boat launch on the north shore of Lady Bird Lake, where we will engage in arts activism as…
Pilgrimage 2: Solidarity of Care
At noon on Saturday, March 19, 2022, I am going to walk the second installation of my Pilgrimage art series, Pilgrimage 2: Solidarity of Care. I am grateful to my Transart Institute cohort; our conversation yesterday relative to art and the…
“Could Have”
As a response to grief, I understand the impulse for keening. But I’m much more likely to withdraw in silence, the pain caught in my throat, until conscious breathing loosens tears. I seek poets’ words to unmute and articulate my…
The Widening Gyre
I walked for two hours in the middle of the day today, and the temperature dropped about twenty degrees during the walk, as a dry north wind pushed the warmer, humid air southward and gathering clouds obscured the sun. I…
Black History Month MasterClass
February is Black History Month here in the U.S., and R. and I have been further learning from a 10-hour, 47-minute course divided into 54 lessons, “Black History, Black Freedom, and Black Love: Lessons from Influential Black Voices,” which MasterClass…
The Extended Mind—and Heart
Last weekend, I participated in the monthly intensive for my doctoral program. Zeerak Ahmed led a two-day workshop, “Critical Immaterial Art,” and she created the space and the assignments for each of us involved to produce art pieces outside our routine media.…
All Seven Letters
R. says that one of his happiest memories of time with his mother was when the two of them settled into a long Scrabble game on Sunday evenings throughout his last couple of years of high school. Both of them…
Learning through the Cracks
The thunder that woke me this morning sounded more like earth being dynamited—a deep rumble, followed by a throaty explosion, then the smack of catapulted rock hitting hard ground—than it did like sky being electrified. Even as I write this,…
A Nidra for You
As we move into these last few weeks of the holiday season and 2021 itself, my whole heart is full of a desire to offer you support and nurturing; tonight, I’m providing a free link to the last segment of…
Lines
A few weeks ago, I was out and about on errands, one of which required me to sit and wait near a long checkout line, in full and close eye contact with everyone who moved forward in the line, so…
Granola
There are many areas in my life in which I am reliable, consistent, compliant with the program; I floss every night, for example, without exception. When it comes to eating plans, though, I’m a bit more…flexible. As with, say, granola…
Cloud Cuckoo Land
One of my main requirements of the literary fiction I read is that I fall more deeply in love with life and have my own humanity expanded by the author’s text, especially the author’s perspective on the characters that populate…
Emergent Patterns
Nature offered up a rich supply of wonders during a walk earlier this week, among which was this enormous spider, its web spun downwind of a seeding bush—the seeds themselves the shape of spiders, designed to loft through the air,…
Hunting and Gathering
One of my superpowers is being able to make a reasonable (perhaps even enticing) meal from bits and scraps of random remainders, and I have been exercising the full range of these abilities for the past couple of weeks, putting…
Considerations of Care
Here’s encouragement for you this weekend, and permission (if you need that, and if I’m in any position to offer that to you in a way that’s meaningful) to balance and ground the windiness and headiness of this fall season—its…
Pilgrimage 1: Mother Line
I have never been so glad as I am today for how young my mother was when I was born. I conceived of the art project I am creating this week as having at its heart a conversion—years to miles—and my…
Elemental
From my perspective and experience, our lives are enmeshed and entwined with others’ lives, from those we love the most and live with the most closely, to those in widening circles of connectivity, finally to all of us residents on…
What We Carry
You know when the air on your four-mile walk feels cool(ish)—but you learn, when you return home and check, that the outside temperature is actually still 90 degrees—that you’ve maybe been living in Central Texas for a while and going…
New and Old
I’ve drafted and erased multiple versions of this post already, awash in a churning mixture of exhaustion, deep concern about loved ones, and self-criticism. Maybe soon I’ll be able to write about the first (thrilling! challenging!) day meeting my PhD…
“Nothing is easy when you might come apart in the middle at any moment.”
So, I have a mild synesthesia, where when I read aloud, my mouth fills with tastes and textures prompted by the writing. It’s not that the words convey for me the specific flavor of, say, Glazed Five-Spice Chicken (unless I’m…
Where We Were
You know that tomorrow is that day, 20 years since the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Pennsylvanian attacks, and we’ve been reminded of them everywhere, all this week: the Story Corps voices resonating, attaching to our hearts; the endless images…
All the Directions of the Heart
When two of your adult children are dating people you have yet to meet in person but already love; when your adult children’s work and school commitments keep them from coming home to visit you; when they would still like…
Her Country; Her Words
An entry in the United Nation’s Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA)’s Poetry for Peace Contest in the fall of 2011, from Sajia Alaha Ahrar, a young female Afghan poet and activist studying then in the U.S.—the longing in her voice…
The View from Here
When you’re a passenger on a motorcycle, the main view you have is the back of the helmet of the driver, the nape of his neck, the edge of his haircut; in my case today, the haircut I last gave…
Structures, Sanctuaries, and Sandcastles
My mind was scattered and sticky this morning during meditation, unwilling to let go of what it landed on, which was images, one after another, of my Greek godlike dad—who became Papa to all of us once he was a…
Witness Walking
Although I’m glad that I opened a bit of space in my writing calendar last month, I’m happy to be returning to this Friday rhythm of welcoming you to the weekend! Thank you for giving me the time, and for…
Stages
Two women this week—one friend already beloved and the other someone I’m just getting to know—spoke to me in entirely different and unrelated settings of major disruptions in their lives and families of origin when they were nine years old…
Elemental
R. and I went to our neighborhood pool today, for the first time since a dip in late September or early October of 2019, when we were oblivious to what the next spring and summer would mean for quarantine and…
“Come healing of the limb.”
You know how tasks—really, any behavior—can be transformed by the intention we bring to them, where the most mundane movements can become an elevated experience through the thoughts and feelings and desires we attach to and reap from our efforts.…
Celebrating the Summer Solstice Together
This year, the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere falls on Sunday, June 20 (the same as Father’s Day), at 10:32 p.m. Central Daylight Time, marking the moment when the North Pole is at its furthest tilt toward the sun…
“A little frog work maybe.”
Wow, I missed my granddaughter, M., during our year plus of quarantine separation. (I also longed for in-person time with her parents, my oldest son and daughter-in-law, but they hadn’t spent as many hours the previous year snuggling next to…
Wishes Come True
We had planned to spend the last daylight hours of every day of this working vacation exploring the miles of trails here in Bentonville, Arkansas; we looked at the weather forecast before leaving Austin, though, and decided not to even…
80 Human Years
Right now, I’m basking in an abundance of love and bursting with gratitude: My birthday buddy middle son flew home a few days ago for a two-week stay, and today we’re 25 and 55 years old. There’s ample sunshine and…
The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Contentment, Comfort, and Connection
You might be thinking, “Hygge?!” Yes, back on November 25, 2020, the New York Times published an article, “Danish Hygge is So Last Year. Say Hello to Swedish Mys.” And Louisa Thomsen Brits’ slim treasure of her own evocative photography,…
Dukkah
You’re on the right track for a pretty wonderful homemade condiment if the first step of your recipe involves gathering fresh rose petals. Fallen blossoms littering the ground is one of my favorite conditions in the natural world: I get…
Separation Anxiety
Although my husband and I were considered fully immunized more than a month ago—two weeks after our second Moderna dose—this morning really seemed the end of quarantine for us, as our youngest son (now fully immunized himself) got behind the…
At an Intersection
Yesterday, on my way driving to pick up a few more ingredients for my oldest son’s 27th (!!!) birthday dinner, I waited at an intersection in the lane next to a mom in a minivan, with two little guys—one maybe…
Salvation Rolls
You know how I feel about toast, and great bread in general occupies a similar place in my heart and psyche—artisan or homemade or just the corner bakery, you know, if you’re in France or Italy! (Perhaps another time I’ll…
DEAR Day
The children’s book author and former school librarian Beverly Cleary passed away last month, on March 25, at the age of 104. Her birthday, April 12, is also National Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) Day, established years ago both to…
Easter
If you celebrate a Christian Easter, I am joining you this Holy Week. It’s a profoundly personal holiday for me, and this is part of what it means: the possibility for renewal and redemption through grace and abiding love. May…
Growth Mindset
I remember feeling an enormous degree of embarrassment and shame over the marks on one particular report card when I was a kid. I was in kindergarten, and even though most of the checked boxes were in the column of…
Tender Resilience
When you’re the oldest of six children in your family of origin; when you are by nature an obedient and reliable person; and when your parents set you up as a gold standard, a parental assistant, and a rules enforcer…
World Sleep Day
Today is World Sleep Day. You may not have had it penciled on your calendar. You/I may only be aware of it because of a marketing campaign by some mattress or pajama or supplement company from whom you receive emails,…
The Secret to the Universe!
My dad was a middle and high school science and math teacher. He liked to say, “Life is a multi-variable equation,” by way of explaining life’s complexity and also its solvability, because there were few problems by which he felt…
