Wrinkles in Time
When you’ve used your dining table as a desk and your kitchen counter to process the incoming mail, then you have company over for dinner (in the years Before Coronavirus) or the least-excuse “holiday” to celebrate, and you dump all…
Getting and Spending
I’m kind of amazed at and mystified by people who head out into stores (well, especially this year, in terms of in-person efforts) or even online to shop, shop, shop their way through an entire day of the deals of…
Creative Inspiration
In my perpetual desire to expand my understanding, taste, and skills, I’ve read hundreds of home design books; of all of them, Erica Tanov’s Design By Nature: Creating Layered, Lived-In Spaces is my current favorite. It’s a treasure trove of…
Giving Thanks
If this were a normal year, similar to the past seven years or so—obviously, it’s not, but let’s imagine for a moment—all my family members who live in Austin would gather at my husband’s and my house for the Thanksgiving…
The Real Scoop
My husband and I raised three sons, all in their 20s now, and we’ve been quarantining since mid-March with our middle and youngest ones. Living again with three men—all six feet tall or above, all athletic, all non-picky, hearty eaters—has…
Wise Trees
Reverence and wonder are two of my favorite states of being. Diane Cook and Len Jenshel, in their gorgeous Wise Trees, elicit both conditions in their textual and photographic portraits of 50 trees around the world which/who are remarkable, not…
What a Sledgehammer Taught Me
Immediately after I graduated from college, I joined my general contractor dad and one of my sisters on a construction site in Atlanta. My dad and his team of us two young women renovated a space at the edge of…
Making the Most of It
A Bradford Pear is considered a junk tree, short-lived and brittle, prone to breaking in unpredictable ways. We had one, planted by the original owners of our house nearly 20 years ago when it was built, and what a glory…
“If you don’t stretch, you won’t know where the edge is.”
Back in May, I was listening (as usual) to NPR by way of KUT here in Austin and heard an article about Sarah Little Turnbull, who immediately became a new hero of mine for her life-changing, life-saving, wide-ranging accomplishments (the…
“When someone shows you who they are . . .
In the words of Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Today, Friday, October 30, is the last day for early voting in Texas; Tuesday, November 3, is election day. It’s not complicated:…
Green Soup
Samin Nosrat, goddess—of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, which I consumed in whole-book form right after it was published—just gave me a glorious upgrade to my standby green soup (from Anna Thomas’ recipe in Love Soup, which I have loved and…
Breath
“I’d gotten a fair share of gasps from friends when I told them about the experiment,” James Nestor recounts, in the first chapter of his most recent book, Breath. “‘Don’t do it!’ a few yoga devotees warned,” me among them…
Rough Places Made Smooth
When we purchased this home of ours, five years ago next month, the sheet-rocked walls were heavily orange-peel textured, in most rooms painted the old-school Ace-bandage color of a pinkish tan, builder grade (which is to say, cheap and prone…
Gathering
Our gathering via Zoom a month ago—for an Autumnal Equinox yin yoga and yoga nidra guided meditation—was a soul-satisfying delight. We said goodbye to the hot/pitta season of summer and welcomed the windy/vata season of fall with our grounded practice,…
“I could offer you a warm embrace”
We set the air conditioning in our house at 80 degrees during the summer, and even then it’s too cold for me. Since our equipment is almost 20 years old and wasn’t high quality to start with, we have an…
Food Coloring
Among all the colors that food can be, my favorite is green. For the 30 years (as of this week!) that I’ve been married, I’ve been preparing and plating meals for my beloveds—first my man, and then our three sons, and…
Gen Hope
In the past few years, there has been an anti-bullying effort in schools. When I was a substitute teacher—often assigned to stand in for the instructional aides who work one-on-one with special education students when they’re integrated into a classroom—I…
H-O-L-D F-A-S-T
What does a (fictional) grizzled sailor on a British ship during the Napoleonic Wars have to do with yin yoga? In the movie “Master and Commander of the Far Side of the World” (one of our family’s favorites for its…
Our People
There’s a lot I don’t understand about what it means to live someone else’s life—especially when differences include a divergence of hundreds of years of social history—but I’m committed to continue listening and learning. One small thing I do know…
Counting to 100
Sometimes I feel as though I’m still coloring with the big crayons. Big crayons, that come just five to a box, that give you the most limited spectrum—nothing like magenta or cerulean blue or chartreuse, the names of which I…
Delicious
Elisabeth Tova Bailey, in her treasure of a slim volume, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, recounts her fascination with a snail when she was forced by a mysterious illness into extreme isolation and stillness. She heads her Prologue…
Birthday Presence
Today is my middle son’s birthday, and mine. For the past couple of months, my husband has been asking me what I want for my birthday, but I haven’t been able to provide him with any useful ideas, because here’s…
Easing into Yin
Yesterday was full of a variety of sorrows, and when I woke up this morning, I could locate exactly where in my body the residue of those feelings was stored: under my right shoulder blade, running up over my right…
Notes on Nidra
Yoga nidra is a guided meditation that follows a specific pattern, which encourages and allows your body, mind, and spirit to relax, restore, and renew at a profound level that is difficult to achieve otherwise, even through the most restful…
Far Away from Anywhere
Our oldest son attended college in Hawaii and fell in love with the state, which is ridiculously easy to do. When I dropped him off there (the second hardest separation of my life thus far, but that’s another story), and…
Love Nesters
Today is our oldest son’s birthday; his youngest brother’s was exactly five weeks ago, and their middle brother’s will be exactly four weeks from today. With this universe-aligned schedule, their birthdays are on the same day of the week every…
Reflections
The first time I remember looking at myself in a mirror was when I was twelve years old, after returning home from a weeklong rustic girls’ camp in the middle of the southeastern Alaskan wilderness near my home. The camp…
90% of the Problems, Solved
Maybe you disagree with me on this, but my theory is: In the absence of mental illness, at least 90% of behavioral problems can be solved when we have the right amounts of well-timed good food and good sleep. I’ve…
Yin
I love learning from experts, and when they use their time and courage to write beautiful books, I’m grateful in effusive and sustained ways. Thank you to my authorial teachers and guides in the development of my yin practice: my…
Yin Yoga and Yoga Nidra
“This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.” Rumi
Reading List
“The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.” George Eliot
Sacred Spaces
“Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.” Joseph Campbell
Nourishment
“Original thinking migrates each day in search of nourishment.” Maya Angelou
Learning
“Who looks inside, awakes.” Jung
