The American Cancer Society believes that every birthday is a victory – another year that cancer has not won. Thanks in part to the Society’s cutting-edge scientific research, patient support, and prevention, education, and advocacy efforts, 11 million cancer survivors will celebrate another birthday this year. Tiny Prints, the online stationary boutique, is fighting for more [...]
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. [...]
I did a one-week “cleanse” in July and am finishing, this weekend, a one-month version. Personally I think “cleanse” has become one of those words, like “cultural fit” (in my work life), which is so commonly used, in so many different contexts, as to be almost entirely devoid of meaning. So let me be more [...]
Dear Grace, Today you are nine. I realize I’m an enormous, pathetic cliche, but: how? How did this happen? The day you were born – in a downpour more torrential than any I’ve seen since – was moments ago. And yet somehow in those minutes we have crammed nine years of living. In the last [...]
Poetry holds the knowledge that we are alive and that we know we’re going to die. The most mysterious aspect of being alive might be that — and poetry knows that. I read these sentences, from Terry Gross, on Beth Kephart’s beautiful blog last week and I simultaneously gasped and welled up with tears. As [...]
Most mornings, I walk Grace and Whit into their respective school buildings. Occasionally, if I have to make it to an early meeting or something, I do “live drop off” instead, letting them hop out of the car while I idle at the curb. For some reason this always brings tears to my eyes. There’s [...]
“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the play and the opera, And grace before the concert and pantomime, And grace before I open a book, And grace before sketching, painting, Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing; And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.” -G.K. Chesterton With [...]
I went to New York for work last Friday. It was a gray, rainy morning, dense with fog, and I sat in my seat on the airplane looking out of the small oval window stressing out about getting home that afternoon. I have enormous travel anxiety: not about safety while flying, but about weather. I [...]
About a month ago I fell when I was running. I’ve done this before, and have written often of my clumsiness. This was a real fall, though, and I caught myself with my right hand. I scraped off a lot of skin on my palm; the entire heel of it was hanging off in a [...]
Last week I mentioned how tired I am lately, how quiet and reserved I’m feeling. That is manifesting in a lot of ways, and one of them is a real lack of inspiration to write. But I am determined to honor my commitment, here and elsewhere. So, a few things that I’m thinking about and [...]
