On the night of a bad day, I wonder if people truly change. If we’re all just out here screwing each other up or if there is, as I’ve been taught, a capacity for a better way. Can the envious toss away layers of green? The angry encounter peace? Can the yeller stop yelling?
It is possible, and it is essential. Listen: we are doing ourselves no favors when we treat our news cycle as a Pez dispenser — when we pop onto our feed(s) and ingest, ingest, ingest another article/think piece/RT until we’re fat and depressed, full and sick. I will make absolutely no apologies for the increasingly
It began with the car accident. The parked car in the street, the U-haul ahead, a pick-up truck peeling out of his driveway with less-than-desirable visibility. I swerve, thinking of course I could clear the parked car to my right. I could not. I scrawl a note with a sincere apology, my contact information. Scout
You know that thing you’ve been wanting to do? Climb Mt. Everest? Clean out your attic? Tailor those pants? Launch that project? Volunteer at the food shelter? I think you should do it this summer. (I know, I know. The kids are home. You’ve got that road trip planned. Work’s insane right now. The calendar’s
There’s an oft-referenced marketing rule that, to encourage impulse purchases in consumers, desirable products should be neatly organized at eye level, preferably as an end cap. Make it eye-catching, make it obvious. Make it impossible to ignore. And this is why I’ve stopped placing my phone on our kitchen counter. It was eye-catching. It was
Confession: I haven’t been a podcast listener for long. I’m not much of a multi-tasker, so the idea of following along with a conversation while trying desperately not to burn dinner sounded like too much for me. But then. Ken and I have fallen into this odd little child-rearing rhythm as of late where I’ll
Something lovely for your Friday. — Maggie Dietz, “Pluto” From That Kind of Happy Pluto Don’t feel small. We all have been demoted. Go on being moon or rock or orb, buoyant and distant, smallest craft ball at Vanevenhoven’s Hardware spray-painted purple or day-glow orange for a child’s elliptical vision of fish line, cardboard
I do not consider myself to be a leader by nature, nor a follower. Perhaps I identify most with the term “observer,” far preferring to sit at the proverbial corner bistro table and watch the world unfold as it does with little interference from me. If you asked, I’d tell you I’m an empath. I