Someone recently asked me, “What do you worry about?” I worry that we will forget to be kind. At the end of his broadcast, Lester Holt urges, “Take care of yourselves and each other.” Sometimes I hear it as “Take care of eeee chuthur.” Sometimes I laugh. Then I realize that I worry about this […]
Life Unwound
Life Unwound: Appreciating life’s moments
I sit on gray stones at half-tide on Maine’s stunning rocky coast. Golden rays shine on blue water. The same sun greens the tree-lined shore. I read Mary Oliver’s poem, “Summer Day”: I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to […]
Life Unwound: Pride comes from unlikely people
As I drive, I listen to a playlist made for Pride Month. The songs don’t directly tackle harassment, job insecurity, bullying or equal rights, but the lyrics ring true today, now. I sing along. Judy Garland’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors”: “And I’ll see your true colors/Shining through/I see your true colors/And […]
Life Unwound: Out of the mouths of babes
I sit at a diner munching salad and overhear a young boy in the next booth ask, “Dad, can I have some fries and do you see that rainbow flag over there?” “Yes, Donny, and yes.” “If I wanted to learn to sew, would that be OK?” “Sure, why?” “Well, when I played at Jimmy’s, […]
Life Unwound: You are companioned
Years ago, in the raw days after shoulder repair surgery, carefully dosing the opioid Dilaudid for pain, I slept, tried to sleep. I tossed this way, miserable in this position, pillows just so in the leather recliner suggested by the surgeon. I turned that way, wincing in that position, propped with cushions as the physical […]
Life Unwound: What brings you alive?
Move more. Stress less. Eat good food. Great advice for living long and well. Then add the nourishment of what you love, of following your bliss, as mythologist Joseph Campbell urged. Don Doane (my dad called him Donny), the professional trombone player who had suffered a stroke years before, called Dad and said, “I read […]
Life Unwound: Quieting the monkey in your mind
On a sunrise walk, I strolled along a path beside a golf course. The sky radiated stripes of pinks and purple before the orb rose huge and round. Billowy clouds in pillowy shapes dotted the pastel expanse above. Birds chatted, echoes of their calls bouncing off the mirror-like water nearby. Squirrels scurried about, chasing each […]
Life Unwound: How sweet it is
As I write, I wear a bangle with three intertwined strands that my father’s mother gave me in 1967. They jangle on my wrist and remind me of Memere. What a honey she was, a real sweetie. I visited Memere often. Memere made candy. I’d break off edges of fudge and savor them, big ones, […]
Life Unwound: Measuring life, inch by inch
As my mid-March birthday approaches each year, two of my brothers like to whip out a 25-foot metal tape measure used by our dad in his shop, which he equipped with a hundred tape measures. He’d say, “They were on sale at Marden’s. Someone in our extended family might need them.” The tape measure appears. […]
Life Unwound: The day everything changes
Does it take upheaval to wake us up? It can happen at any time. It can happen in a pandemic. It can happen as politics go on as usual or not so usual. It can happen as the world swirls in climate chaos. You’ve gone along, existing, for all your years. You’ve thought that life […]