Last summer my neighbor’s son built a huge skate ramp right next to our property line. (We’re on different streets, so I’d never met him or his family.) First sawing, then drills, and eventually it was finished. I was glad for the wild Toyon bushes that grew high along a chain-link fence, blocking the view—but […]
Waking up on the Grumpy Side of the Bed: Coping with difficult moods
“Yesterday all day a small gardenia was a great consolation.” Thomas Merton A Year with Thomas Merton: Daily Meditations from His Journals Some days are harder than others. It’s tempting to find something or someone to blame, even if it’s just the wrong side of the bed. Yesterday, I woke up grumpy, but instead of […]
Remaking Love: When did you stop dancing?
Taking Down the Walls to Intimacy Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven Sometime during the first episode of BBC’s Pride and Prejudice, I fell in love with Mr. Darcy. So much so […]
Look Into My Eyes: The crucial role of eye contact in relationships
People are innately attracted to faces, especially eyes. The human face is associated with our identity; we are recognized more through our eyes than through any other facial feature. ”Because the eyes offer such rich social information, adults and infants alike show a natural attraction to the whole face,” write contributors to the APA handbook […]
The Elusive Muse: Reclaiming creativity and focus
For three months, I’ve resisted writing. I sat at my desk or the kitchen table—my favorite place to write—to compose an essay, but distraction beckoned me at every turn. The muse, that slippery, elusive impulse to create words from experiences and observations, had gone missing. Each week I’d tell myself that I’d write over the weekend, […]
