Two images from Inauguration Day stay with me: 1. Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, idle in the dark after a busy Inauguration Day. They listen. They look. They attend. They stand quiet, seeing the lined-with-lights reflecting pool and the Lincoln Memorial. They embody stillness in the midst of political and cultural change. 2. […]
Life Unwound
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
Life Unwound: Make space for the next generation
What do they say? The days are long and the years are short. One of my pals has a 5-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son. The girl doesn’t sleep, ever. The boy fights and tantrums, always. Their mom feels frazzled, exhausted, sometimes overly involved, other times checked out. I tell her, “I remember.” I remember […]
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Posted inThe Forecaster
Letter: Reader sees value in all Forecaster columnists
I look forward to reading the thoughts and opinions expressed each week in The Forecaster. It’s good to know the ideas and opinions of our local neighbors, as opposed to the professionals in the national media. I like the positive thinking Heather Martin gives us and the valuable perspective of a new American, Abdi Iftin. […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
Life Unwound: Letter of love
My mother died a year ago between Christmas and New Year’s. I’ve thought about her often and that song from the musical “Rent” keeps reappearing: “How do you measure a year? In daylights? In sunsets? In midnights? In cups of coffee? In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife?” How do we measure a life? […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
Life Unwound: Resolve to simply be still in 2021
New Year’s Resolutions? Oh my, not again. Every year. And every year they fail because we (or maybe I) resolve to do something in the future. In 2021, I will finally (fill in the blank) lose those last 5 pounds. I will … I will, I will. What if we resolve to do something that […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
Life Unwound: People need people
In my 30s, I recall saying, “Wait. What? I don’t get it. I should get it. When I was 14, one of my brothers died soon after birth. When I was 21, my 41-year-old aunt died. People die. Grandparents die, but not my grandfather.” Pepere Lebel loved me as one of those people the experts […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
Life Unwound: Listening for lightness
I remember the Indigo Girls’ song with the line “Darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable but lightness has a call that’s hard to hear.” I wonder if what we hear is a matter of attention. I wonder if my focus, if our focus, gets pulled to the darkness, fed by the 24-hour news cycle, these […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
Life Unwound: Voting is a right, a privilege, an honor and a duty
My grandmothers told me they were thrilled when women were granted the right to vote. My mother’s mother said, “Women unable to vote made no sense to me. It is such a privilege, so important. I would never miss it.” My father’s mother said, “I cried the first time I voted. We matter. You’ll see.” […]
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Life Unwound: Kids as gurus
From the mouths of babes come invaluable lessons about joy and living life to the fullest.
Posted inForecaster Opinion
Life Unwound: Can we be present not being present?
Memories can co-exist with being mindful, as long as we know the boundaries.