On Resilience

Keeping It Real at Reunions

I’m headed to Chicago for my college reunion. Tis’ the season.

Women of Second Acts

Brace yourself…we are among Denver’s mid-stage widows, otherwise known as The Second Act. Each of us in our own way has either launched her Act 2 or is hoping to do so in time.

I am a secular Jew, and while faith comes to me through varied mediums like poetry, song, friendship, the Christian hymn Amazing Grace, cooking, and wandering in the mountains, among other ways, I tend to be very receptive during these ‘Days of Awe.’

Pure Sensation

Scene: Four African-American men in Glasgow, Kentucky, hunting friends for fifty years. They tell the same stories, laugh at the same jokes, complete one another’s sentences. Intimate beyond intimate, the men transcend time and place. The world changes around them but they live simply, and amidst nature. It’s a quiet, reverent lifestyle.

On Secrets

Every family has its secrets–uncomfortable remnants of the past or matters of the heart too raw to reveal. But what if you discovered a family secret so powerful that the truth challenged your very identity?

Eggs and Inspired Living

Appreciate the whimsy of youth. Because once we were young and swapped food and friends and pleasures as unpredictably as a sneeze. Isn’t it so much harder to change our minds as we age?

And She Rides

The other morning my daughter Rebecca announces that she’d like to ride her bike to photography camp –- alone. We strike a deal that I’ll accompany her in the morning, letting her lead the way, but that yes, she can ride home on her own. She’s twelve now, and has a cell phone…just in case.

What Happened to May?

May pulled me by the collar like a cyclone. All month I spun from event to event–birthdays, mother’s day, school plays, school picnics, school fundraisers, school conferences, school projects, cycling events, and so forth. Beyond “planning” and “showing up,” there were annual medical appointments to be made, camp forms to be completed, a sputtering washing machine to fight, and the ongoing drill of stocking the fridge and freezer, and preparing family meals.