On Knowing When to Walk Away (and When to Run :))

August 19, 2013.Reading time 4 minutes.

WTA tennis player Marion Bartoli stunned the world last week when she announced her retirement in her first tournament back after winning Wimbledon earlier this summer. “I’ve been a tennis player for a long time,” she said, “I had a chance to make my biggest dream a reality. I felt I really, really pushed through […]

The Best Question

August 13, 2013.Reading time 7 minutes.

A friend posted a link to a blog post this morning by a woman wrestling with the possibility that she and her husband may never have children. My heart hurt as I read it because I’ve been there, and I sort of wished I could hug her… except that I’ve been on the receiving end […]

How The West Wing is helping me think about another NYTimes article

August 8, 2013.Reading time 7 minutes.

Steve and I are in the midst of a two-week West Wing marathon. I love the writing – plot, pacing, brilliant banter. It helps me think about the mixed reality of human life: how sometimes we win, but just as often we lose, either because we blow it or someone pulls some last minute stunt […]

Calling Bullsh*t on the Trauma of Being Alive

August 5, 2013.Reading time 9 minutes.

I just read an article in today’s New York Times called The Trauma of Being Alive. It pissed me off. It feeds the dysfunctional obsession with defining ourselves in terms of the worst thing that has happened so far. Child of bad parents? Been through an ugly divorce? Lose a friend or sibling or parent […]

Surprised by Joy (and a purple Huffy bike)

August 2, 2013.Reading time 2 minutes.

I spent some happy times on our vacation this week tooling around on this ridiculous purple bicycle. I know there are all kinds of metaphors just waiting for me in this, and I’ll dig them out eventually. (Expect to read about the Purple Huffy in a book someday down the road.) But for now, I’m […]

All The Time In The World

July 22, 2013.Reading time 5 minutes.

We went to a new church yesterday, visiting my friend Super G who lives south of the city (a strange thing about this area is how seldom residents cross the Charles River. Cambridge-siders live, work & play on one side, Bostonians on the other. So when we make the trek across it feels like a […]