To age gracefully, you have to accept loss and embrace change. Reflecting on her brother’s passing a year earlier, my friend Mary shared: “to age gracefully, I am told, you have to accept loss and embrace change. Easier said than done.”  She lost her oldest brother to COVID in April 2020. I do not know … More The Chair

You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been.   Maya Angelou (American poet 1928 – 2014) I was 25. The extraordinary music of Maya Angelou’s words filled the air, my ears, my heart at my Simmons College graduate degree Commencement ceremony many Mays ago. Her words were reassuring, bold … More Twenty-something…

“Summer breeze makes me feel fine…” Seals and Crofts The summers of childhood always started here on this weekend, Memorial Day. A distinct demarcation that ended sadly, and abruptly, on Labor Day. The above ground pools that dotted my neighborhood began to open and the whole summer’s promise spanned ahead. Tiny basil and tomato plants … More Summer

To us, the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. Chief Seattle, Native American leader, 1786-1866 Struggling to stay asleep one pre-dawn morning this past week, having read too many news headlines too late before bed, my mind was unquiet and racing. Germs, quarantines, masks, isolation, shortages, layoffs. I … More Dig Deep

“Sophia, I want to explain something to you. Sometimes it is lonely and even a little sad for your Poppy and me without your Memi and Uncle Max. So together we reminisce and tell stories and sometimes we even laugh. He is a lifelong friend to me, Sophia and that’s what he will always be, … More Kite Tail

A blessing to share words with those gathered on a beautiful late summer evening, September 1, 2019 for the wedding of my nephew Christopher and his bride Samantha. When we think of all the firsts in life – maybe something challenging, something scary, something adventurous – always mixed in is a blend of emotion that … More Elpida ~ A Wedding

Nowadays, people are so jeezled up. If they took some chamomile tea and spent more time rocking on the porch in the evening listening to the liquid song of the hermit thrush, they might enjoy life more. Tasha Tudor, 1915–2008, children’s book illustrator and writer. This early morning I sit on a porch like no … More The Porch

I really saw clearly, and for the first time, why a mother is really important. Not just because she feeds and also loves and cuddles and even mollycoddles a child, but because in an interesting and maybe an eerie and unworldly way, she stands in the gap. She stands between the unknown and the known. … More Women Folk

Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows. Native American Proverb Time spent worrying about the next steps and places on the journey can expend an extraordinary amount of energy. In reflection, we see it wasn’t really the worrying that propelled the change, but rather, … More LISTEN

Every step you take should be a prayer. And if every step you take is a prayer, then you will always be walking in a sacred manner. -Oglala Lakota Holyman On this eve of a new year, we pause in quiet reflection. We may recall blended moments of both joy and sadness. And only with … More In Every Step…

Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way. Native American proverb~ When we live in gratitude, every day has space for thanks giving.  Yet do we set that time aside to just sit, to just be?  Do we pray and sing and lift our blessings, our thanks, to a Greater Spirit? Tomorrow is the … More Table of Blessings

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.  Aristotle Dedicated to Michael T. Heston – Brigadier General, U.S. Army, my lifelong friend since we were kids on that campus by the ocean, connected through all the years in between and now both, by some crazy mix of luck and … More The Lens

My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and … More Lily Pad Days

Dedicated to my mother, Gracie, on this Mother’s Day … she loved her westerns and cowboys, too! “…If you want any one thing too badly, it’s likely to turn out to be a disappointment. The only healthy way to live life is to learn to like all the little everyday things, like a sip of … More True Grit

“People dancing, people laughing. A man selling ice cream. Singing Italian songs. Everybody is another. Can you dig it (yes, I can). And I’ve been waiting such a long time…for Saturday.”  Saturday in the Park, Chicago, 1973 Just thinking of the combination – the beautiful blend of the year, my age, a new bike. Freedom. … More Saturday in the Park