When my kids were little, I taught them to say the words “Stop, please” if anyone in the family was doing something that bothered or upset them. I made it clear they had to say the exact words in the exact order. They couldn’t just yell, “Stop it.” Because the words themselves were the cue...
In the Mumford and Sons song, “Awake My Soul,” there’s a line that says, “Where you invest your love, you invest your life.” I just returned from a trip to visit my aunt. In her bathroom, she has a towel that reads, “Love, Family, Faith.” In those three things she has invested her entire life...
The other night at a local concert, singer-songwriter Maia Sharp talked about a conversation that took place when her long-term relationship was coming to an end. Her partner said, “You’re gonna make a nice girl miserable someday.” Maia must have gotten a certain look on her face, because her girlfriend then added, “Oh my God....
Since rewatching the broadcast of Come From Away—the Broadway musical now streaming on Apple TV— I’ve had the song “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace” stuck in my head. We sang it often at mass when I was growing up, and I found it to be not only a beautiful melody, but wonderfully aspirational...
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...
I was talking to a very lovely but very sad woman in my pandemic dream last night. We were in a foreign country surrounded by beautiful scenery. “What’s wrong?” I asked “I’m just so homesick,” she said. I sat down beside her. “I know, and it feels kind of wrong, doesn’t it, to feel homesick...
A friend of mine was telling me she’d heard that creativity was one of the great casualties of the pandemic (my words, not hers). She noted how she’d stopped doing any of the creative things she’d previously loved to do, like quilting, and even now was struggling to find the energy to return to those...
When I was a kid, I loved reruns of I Love Lucy. In one episode, Lucy and her gang are visiting Paris and she is arrested for unintentionally passing off counterfeit money. At the police station, no one speaks English. But Lucy’s husband, Ricky, speaks Spanish and English. A local drunk at the station speaks...
I was chatting with a good friend the other day about how much I feel I’ve changed since the pandemic. I’ve realized how many of my previous life decisions were dictated by FOMO (fear of missing out). Now, I’m making my decisions by taking a moment to lean in and decide whether my energy is...
When I was in college, I worked at a popular Mexican restaurant. Every Friday night, I’d watch my friend who was a cocktail server maneuver around the packed lobby delivering drinks to customers who were waiting to be seated. One day I asked her, “How do you carry those trays of drinks through all those...