The Long Road of Blog
“It’s as though I were living at last in my eyes, as I have always dreamed of doing, and I think then I know why I’ve come here: to see, and so to go out against new things—oh god how easily—like air in a breeze. It’s true there are moments—foolish moments, ecstasy on a tree stump—when I’m all but gone, scattered I like to think like seed…”
William Gass, In the Heart of the Heart of the Country
Flaming Doorways to Love
Recently I figured out that many things in my life which frightened me were actually flaming doorways to opportunity.
Daughters and Mothers and Truth and Love
I know my mother could not fully exist as herself with me in the room because I read my mother’s journals after she died and I saw what I had always suspected: she was not presenting the real story of herself and her life to me.
Why Everyone and His or Her Mother Should Do Write or Die
Icarus’s father warned him not to fly too close to the sun, but he also warned him not to fly too close to the water. There is a middle ground, a place of wonder and freedom. Let’s meet there.
What if Contact with Other People is Slowly Killing Some Adoptees?
I want to tell you something. I don’t understand my body and my mind. It seems the older I get, the more I am morphing into an infant who just lost her mother.
What Happens When You Chew Your Food
I never imagined that working on a book about money would lead me to writing about chewing my food, but that’s one reason I write: to find connections where none existed before.
Fatigue and the Lie of the Self
I have been thinking about fatigue and why I am tired much of the time. It’s not that I walk around with my head hanging, gasping for air—it’s that I’ll be fine and happy and suddenly, out of nowhere it seems, I’m so tired I can barely finish a sentence, never mind read a book or answer emails or have a thought that feels important. This kind of fatigue is exhausting. It’s like: how can I keep going?
What I Did after Learning I was Jillionaire (Told in Second Person for No Good Reason)
1. Venmo your daughter a million dollars.
2. Venmo her dad two million dollars.
3. Regret ruining your daughter’s life by taking away her fire to provide for herself.
4. Worry that two million won’t get her dad a house in Los Gatos. Venmo another 500k. Worry that won’t be enough for a house with a pool. Venmo another 10 million.
My Sales Pitch for Toadal Fitness in Santa Cruz, or What Happens When French People Name a Gym
I was getting skinnier and skinnier. At one point in my life, that would have been an exciting thing, but at 54, skinnier was meaning weaker. Skinnier meant I looked like I’d gotten my legs from a chicken and my butt from a pancake.
New Year's Resolutions and Who Are You, Anyway?
What if instead of New Year’s Resolutions we called them New Year’s Dreams? What if we treated goals as dreams, and dreams as imaginable targets instead of someday but not today escape routes? What if we had the courage to name what we really wanted even if it seemed petty or impossible?
Three Goals, One Cheerleader, and a Bunch of Meditating Manaics
The magic of the group has already started. One person signed up and offered to pay the $50 monthly cost of participating for someone who could not afford it at this time. I had the perfect person in mind, and now she’s IN.
There is so much joy in giving and receiving. Both feel so good.
How to Start Writing When You Feel You Have Nothing to Say or How to Poop When You Haven't Eaten for Days
This one will take you 30 seconds to read.