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“I just can’t wait till things go back to normal.” How many times have you heard someone say that on a news broadcast lately? How many times has that thought crossed your own mind, even if you don’t believe it’s really possible? Living in this time of COVID-19 is hard, and one of the things...
I’ve always turned down invitations to join book clubs. Not because I don’t see the value in them and definitely not because I didn’t like the people inviting me, but because I always seem to have stacks of books of my own to read. Lately, though, I’ve found myself in three book groups. It so...
I’ve been feeling really down about this pandemic the past few days, as the numbers swing upwards again. It was taking too much energy to feel sorry for myself, though, so I decided to create a list of good things that will come from several more months of “safer-at-home” orders. My list didn’t get very...
When I was a little girl, my younger brother and I listened often to a beloved record of old cowboy songs. Growing up in Idaho, we had real live cowboys walking down the street and we were fascinated by them and by the outlaws of the Old West. My favorite song on the album was...
Several dear friends sent me e-mails a few weeks into the lockdown that said variations of, “Are you okay? I’m worried about my extroverted friends. I know this whole thing is harder for people like you.” Then they’d say something like, “Well, at least you have Zoom, and now so many people are livestreaming their...
I was flipping through a book called When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron and came across this line. “Wisdom and ignorance cannot be separated.” I cannot comment on that sentence within the context of what she is writing about, because I have not yet read the book, but I can comment on what that...
I confess that I, too, have been using the word “unprecedented” to describe our current condition during this COVID-19 pandemic. And in so many ways, the word seems to fit. But then I came across these lines in Bill Bryson’s book, Shakespeare: The World as Stage, “London’s theaters were officially ordered shut, and would remain...
Well, I knew it might happen someday. People ask me all the time how I can come up with enough content for a weekly blog. Don’t I ever get stuck? Up until now, I’ve been able to smugly reply, “No, I never get stuck. I think that’s because when I started this blog, I didn’t...
This year of 2020 has certainly opened my eyes in more ways than I ever expected, and deconstructed so many things I thought were unshakeable truths. Even before COVID-19 locked us all in our homes, I heard something that completely upset the one rule I thought would always hold up to any scrutiny, the Golden...
I’ve been listening to a series of interviews with legendary authors who were asked to share their life wisdom. I expected to be shaken to my core by their words of insight. After all, these are writers who have left us gasping at the beauty of their written words. Instead, I was shocked by how...