things that don’t need explaining
It’s not about having things figured out, or about communicating with other people, trying to make them understand what you understand. It’s about a chicken dinner at a drive-in. A soft pillow. Things...
View Articlewhat consoles us and what redeems us
Our hermitage is the act of living with attention in the midst of things: amid the rhythms of work and love, the bath with the child, the endlessly growing paperwork, the ever-present likelihood of...
View Articlethat defines you
I hope you’ll discover, as I have, that its not what lands you in the dark woods that defines you, but what you do to make it out. – Joseph Luzzi, In a Dark Wood
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life is not lived in the future
But she grasped the urgency of the moment, knowing what almost everyone in France knows, which is to say that life is not lived in the future. “Seize the moment,” she said. “Pay attention to your...
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not the way we expected
They lay next to each other and listened to the rain. So life hasn’t turned out right for either of us, not the way we expected, he said. Except it feels good now, at this moment. Better than I have...
View Articleto see something
The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. – John Ruskin Thank you to Hilary for sharing this beautiful passage with me.
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all that I know to be true right now
I’d have to stare at them all night to take them in. It’s tempting. I plant a kiss on each of their heads. It will never be enough. A lifetime of kisses would not fill the space in me that belongs...
View ArticleA love affair with the world
Ultimately, I see mindfulness as a love affair – with life, with reality and imagination, with the beauty of your own being, with your heart and body and mind, and with the world. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn I...
View ArticleI feel connected
I look up at the stars. I feel connected: legs to earth, shoulders to sky. I squint my eyes and see the lines that link stars to make constellations, feel their umbra extend down to me, connecting me...
View ArticleBig Magic
Creativity is sacred, and it is not sacred. What we make matters enormously, and it doesn’t matter at all. We toil alone, and we are accompanied by spirits. We are terrified, and we are brave. Art is a...
View Articlean acknowledgment of great fortune and a prayer of thanks
Pru asked if she was okay, and June answered with a question that seemed to Pru to be more of a comment on June’s struggles with Lolly: Did you ever have a family? Pru said she sounded completely...
View ArticleThe World I Live In
I have refused to live locked in the orderly house of reasons and proofs. The world I live in and believe in is wider than that. And anyway, what’s wrong with Maybe? You wouldn’t believe what once or...
View Articlelight flitting over a pond
I believe in movement. I believe in that lighthearted balloon, the world. I believe in midnight and the hour of noon. But what else do I believe in? Sometimes everything. Sometimes nothing. It...
View Articlethere is a consequence of attentiveness
And as with prayer, which is a dipping of oneself toward the light, there is a consequence of attentiveness to the grass itself, and to the sky itself, and to the floating bird. I too leave the fret...
View ArticleTimes of change are holy
“Times of change are holy. We may not know where we are going. It may not feel like our feet are on solid ground. They aren’t. We are crossing a bridge to another part of our lives. Sometimes we may...
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noticers of life
Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature; which in turn makes us better readers of life. – James...
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makes the whole planet less lonely
This is not our holiday card, but I sort of wish it was. Totally unrelated to Mary Karr’s beautiful quote, but it’s how I feel this morning, home again after 2 weeks of travel. Exhausted but very...
View Articletoo large and brilliant for us to see
That design – ferocious wisdom, implacable light, time’s ineluctable unfolding – is too large and brilliant for us to see, though sometimes we can feel the edge of the storm. – Mark Doty, Heaven’s Coast
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Moving towards the solstice
I interrupt my reminiscences on 2015 to bring you this poem, on this day, as I have for so many years in a row. I’ve written so many things about this poem over the years, yet the same lines jump out...
View ArticleHow we pay attention
Most of us spend our time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search. Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: We are trying to find good...
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