My husband laughed last night when I said, “It’s so much work just being alive.” I was describing my day, in which I’d awakened with a list in my head of all the things I was going to get done, and by the end of the day, only half of them were completed. In the...
A friend was telling me about a specific regret she has regarding a family member. It surfaces now and then, and when it does, it loops through her head all day. She knows it’s not “healthy” to dwell on that regret, since there’s nothing that can be done about it now, but she can’t help...
Dr. Stuart Brown, author of Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, has defined eight “play personalities.” You know me, I couldn’t resist taking the quiz to discover mine. The types are: the joker, the kinesthete, the explorer, the director, the competitor, the collector, the artist/creator, and the storyteller....
This post originally ran Aug. 24, 2019 I’ve wanted to write a novel about my Mexican grandmother since I was fifteen. I’ve known all along what the first line would be: “When I was nine years old, Poncho Villa rode into town and killed a merchant in the street.” Whenever I think of that line,...
As we stepped outside the other day, I suggested my husband and I do a “color walk,” where you look for a specific color as you stroll along. He chose red, of course. It’s his favorite color. So, we started naming red things immediately: red front door, red car, red trim on house, red wagon....
Recently, I had two dreams back-to-back that both featured me eating gummy bears. This struck me as odd. I like gummy bears, but they’re not something I usually seek out. Being more the organic dark chocolate type, they’re not a candy that typically crosses my mind. I’ve always meant to get better at interpreting and...
I’ve started off this year enrolled in an eight-week creativity class. Me, a 30-year veteran of the creative life. You’d think I’d know it all by now, but I sometimes need to sharpen my creative tools or be reminded why this work matters. As part of our homework for this week, the instructor suggested we...
This post originally ran on January 12, 2019 Every month, our local thrift store calls and asks if we have any donations, and every month we say, “Sure, we’ll leave a bag on the porch for you.” It forces my husband and I to walk through our entire house every 30 days, dig through all...
A friend and I made a pact to focus on joy for 30 days. The funny thing is, after 18 months of pandemic, social and political unrest, climate disasters, and more, I was having trouble connecting to what brings me joy. I decided to focus on really simple, kinda silly things. At the top of...
I was listening to an old interview with Louise Hay on the Hay House podcast, You Can Heal Your Life. Louise said when people started coming to her for help, she noticed that all of their problems fell into four categories, money, health, relationships, and creativity. At first, she tried to address each category separately...