mindfulness

Born of Disappearance

Do you really have to do this? This question comes at me every day, an accusation on constant repeat. Do you really have to do this? I feel the reluctance. I feel the hostility. I feel the privilege, the delusion, the artificiality behind my strivings. All too often I must admit, I am defeated by…Read more Born of Disappearance

Summer’s Golden Flourish 

I wrote this piece at the end of summer two years ago! It’s both fitting and funny that somehow almost all of it still holds true today (with just one tweak: my older child goes to elementary school now): My days are mainly composed of routine tasks: I’m up early every morning—whether I’m ready or…Read more Summer’s Golden Flourish 

Bittersweet

I spent most of last weekend in a kitchen heavenly fragrant with dried fruits, cinnamon, vanilla, ginger, nutmeg, brandy and red wine. That magnificent aroma of the holiday season wafting richly from mulled wine, glistening fruitcakes, sugar cookies and spicy gingerbread. I also brought out my largest pot to make a large batch of treats…Read more Bittersweet

Thankful

Part of me will always be suspended in disbelief. Dangling where there is no ground, no up or down, nothing more substantial than a mysterious ether. But I am not afraid. I am grateful. I know there are plenty of reasons to be worried, sorrowful, pessimistic. Plenty of tragedy, injustice and hate embedded, looming and…Read more Thankful

The Pendulum of Empathy

“Why empathy?” Silence. “Why compassion?” Silence. “Why should we care about each other?” No one answered. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to answer, we simply struggled to find the best reasoning for it. Perhaps we had never asked ourselves these existential questions before. Perhaps we couldn’t find an answer that wasn’t trite, naïve, or saturated…Read more The Pendulum of Empathy

A Gentle Autumn

This autumn in northern Europe is unseasonably gentle and warm. The turning of the leaves from deep green to all the colors of flame and sunset, the baring of elegant dark, sloping branches, the abundant soft coverings on the ground, the scents of damp earth, fallen apples and acorns, crumbling organic growth. All these magnificent…Read more A Gentle Autumn

The Edge of Summer

Summer is moving steadily and surely towards autumn. We are right on the edge of it. The deep lush green of an unusually long, hot growing season is giving way to the blazing colors of countless sunsets. First it comes in fitful bursts: swathes of yellow, lashings of red, streaks of pink. Growing bolder and…Read more The Edge of Summer

Lasting Summer

My earliest memories make no logical sense, one moment I’m standing in a field of sugarcane, the next moment I’m with a flock of ladies in a churchyard, in another moment I‘m running up the front steps of home. The green cane stalks loom above me in my toddler height, bowing in the wind as…Read more Lasting Summer

5 Years of Spring

It had been the perfect spring morning, full of rose-colored light, the air as soft as petals after winter’s sluggish passing. The apple trees in the garden were thick with white blossoms, the young cherry trees full of dark purplish buds nearly ready to unfurl. Soon the locust, the linden, the lilacs and chestnuts would…Read more 5 Years of Spring