Make your life perfect in 2020 or they say in a thousand little iterations this time of year. I am home and online enough to read their variety. Why not jump on the bandwagon? Join a reading challenge. Make a book list. Exercise goals. Career goals. Family goals. Bucket list
As the Vince Guaraldi song chimes in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” Christmas time is here Families drawing near Oh, that we could always see Such spirit through the year. You have done it: the hustle, the bustle, the Christmas baskets and Christmas shopping, the delivering, the Santa-ing, the cooking, the
Quietly, I sneak out of bed in the dark hearing the drops of rain pitter upon our rooftop and the slosh of puddles divided by passing cars. It is five in the morning. Yesterday I told myself perhaps I would have to wake this early to find that elusive state
The Marshmallow Test In 1972, Stanford professor Walter Mishel conducted a study in which a child was offered the choice between a marshmallow right away or two marshmallows if they waited until the researcher came back in fifteen minutes. Researchers followed up with children thirty years later. The first twenty seconds
From the superficial to the depth, there are more layers of thanks than meet the eye. Acknowledgement I teach my children to say, “thank you.” The understanding is, you give me something, I respond in thanks. At its most basic level, we express our thanks acknowledging the words or actions
“All of California is burning,” she said. As I write this, we are on the second “red flag warning,” the second roll of PG&E blackouts that in this area in October affect us but little. There is an impeachment inquiry. New revelations every day. Far away, confusing, conflicting and alarming
When good possibilities seem endless, how do we discern what choices to make? How can we approach these periods of joy and hustle? I sat on the patio looking out over my year. Instead of the dead grass and growing weeds, my eyes focused on the three folding tables covered
I grew so much much during our time of crisis. Now back at home, I find myself struggling. Two virtues are needed for this slow growth in the little way: patience and labor.
John Donne wrote, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man / is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” This means we are all part of a community of persons, nested in society. We do not stand alone, like a remote island
On a rainy May afternoon I ducked out of the drizzle through the double glass doors of the Mistlin Art Gallery in the city’s historic downtown to join an intimate gathering of local opera lovers. Patrons gathered around mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz, artist, performer, and remarkable stage presence for a solo
