The way you look at someone–and smile–will affect them in ways you may never know. Some of us take a lot of trouble with our appearance–to present the best possible countenance to the rest of the world. We gaze in the mirror and refine our looks with gadgets and beauty products, preening and posing until…Continue Reading “Through Your Eyes”
It’s Sunday. A good day to express gratitude if you take a traditional approach to these things. Actually, I take time every day to be grateful. It is part of my spiritual practice. I have a lot to be grateful for this week. For one, I started a new job at the beginning of the…Continue Reading “A flat tire changed me”
In the final days of my cat, Natasha’s life, was human comfort or feline comfort my priority? Already a spectral presence, frighteningly thin, weak, and silent, my dying cat took up residence under the bed exactly far enough from either side that she could not be reached. I lay on the floor, my arm outstretched…Continue Reading “Whose Suffering Is It Anyway?”
I live in a region of the country where outdoor recreational activities abound. Last night I overheard a couple of young men standing behind me at an open-air concert discussing their hiking plans for the summer. Not wanting to turn around and stare, I could just imagine two strapping, healthy youths sporting robust backpacks and…Continue Reading “A peak a week”
Yosemite is practically in my backyard since I moved west in 2004; so yesterday, with no advance planning at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, my friend and I drove the 2 1/2 hours to get there, and I saw Yosemite for the first time in my 57 years. Years of exposure to Ansel Adams’ stunning…Continue Reading “When is nature not theatrical enough?”
Shaking off the shackles of writer’s block (as any writer knows) is not easy, but I’ve learned that anything worth doing is rarely as easy as it seems when you start out. Occasionally, just starting out is the difficult part. I decided to use the strategy my own coach, Scott Lewis, taught me when I…Continue Reading “One sentence at a time”
It was destined to happen sooner or later, that dreaded affliction of every writer–block! Here I was, steaming along at a locomotive clip when I slowed down to see the track ahead better and eventually slammed on the brakes. Now I’m sitting on the rails reluctant to stoke the engine fire for fear (yes, there’s…Continue Reading “Writers’ Block, or Fear?”
When I was 15 years old, an outspoken young friend of mine said to me, “Not everyone is going to like you. no matter how nice you are.” I was shocked. How could it be that no matter how hard I tried and no matter what I did to achieve what I thought was perfection,…Continue Reading “Be real, not perfect”
My niece witnessed an older woman in the supermarket checkout line deliberately turning a magazine to hide the cover photo of President-elect Obama. The woman who flipped the magazine around said nothing to explain her strange behavior. Was it a silent protest against a Democrat winning the election? An African-American? I found this story very…Continue Reading “How hate manifests when we’re afraid”
After writing for 28 days, at least 3 hours every day, I am wrung out, but thrilled to have created a novel out of thin air. As I think back over the story I see how each of the plot lines and characters contain elements of myself. All of the issues I’ve tackled are fragments…Continue Reading “Pushing words up the anthill”